Home > News & Policies > August 2001

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 8, 2001

Remarks by the President
In Visit to Coffee Station
Crawford, Texas

10:40 A.M. CDT

     THE PRESIDENT:  I've got some of the local farmers here; I'm going to explain to them the $5.5 supplemental I'm signing here pretty soon. Emergency supplemental for --

     Q    How does it feel to be here with the people of Crawford?

     THE PRESIDENT:  It's great to be here with the people of Crawford.

     Q    What did you order, sir?

     THE PRESIDENT:  I ordered a cheeseburger and some onion rings.  And I'm not sharing any with you.  (Laughter.)

     Stretch, you order something up.  You're getting paid too much money anyway.

     Q    I'll have a bite of your cheeseburger, how's that?

     Q    Sir, did the sign make you decide to come inside?

     THE PRESIDENT:  What did it say?

     Q    Did the sign outside make you decide to stop?

     THE PRESIDENT:  I didn't see it.  What did it say?

     Q    It said, "George and Laura, come by."

     THE PRESIDENT:  No.  What made me decide to stop was the wonderful people who own the place and the cheeseburger.  (Laughter.)

     One of the things that I'm talking about here is how hard it is for a lot of these farmers to make a living.  And one of the things about the farm program that we've got to make sure happens is that when there's emergency aid like the bill I'm going to sign here next week, it gets to the farmers who are farming.

     A lot of times, that money goes to people who aren't farmers.  We want to make sure it goes to help the farmers who are actually farming the land. There's a lot of medium-sized farmers that need help, and one of the things that we're going to make sure of as we restructure the farm program next year is that the money goes to the people it's meant to help.

     I'm also going to tell them that part of the supplemental -- some folks tried to increase the supplemental, but that money wasn't going to the farmers.  The extra money they tried to put on that would have busted the budget wasn't going to farmers, it was going to other matters.  And what I'm interested in is giving -- payments to the people that, like the corn farmers here at the table, that are working hard to make a living.

     Having said that, now we can eat.  (Laughter.)

     Q    -- are you going running this afternoon?

     THE PRESIDENT:  I'm not going to run today, but I'll get you out there one of these days.  I'm not going to run today.

END                                                            10:47 A.M. CDT