Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

And hello again, everyone, and thanks for being with us.

It was another big week in Washington, D.C. for Arkansas.

There in the nation's capital, a singer born in Kingsland and Rearden Dyess grew to international renown in Nashville.

We'll have more on that in a moment.

First, news of a different sort from Washington.

With the nation's farmers growing anxious while the nation's government cut yet another short term package to avoid closure up top.

We're joined by the ranking Republican on the Senate AG Committee, Senator John Boozman of Arkansas.

Senator, as always, thanks very much for being with us.

Always great to be with the dean of Arkansas Broadcasting.

Well, you how is it video with you?

Well, maybe next time.

You had a monday deadline and you beat that.

But as always, with a with a continuing resolution there, there's some unhappiness pretty much across the board.

Is this the best that the Congress, House and Senate could do?

Yeah, I think it really is, Steve.

There's we have the election going on.

It's not uncommon to carry things into past the election.

So we there was not a lot of drama associated with this.

It passed overwhelmingly House of Senate.

And the agreement was really let's put this aside, let's work on it.

And once the election's over and then I very much get done in the lame duck session that during this, which is really.

Is there any chance at all of getting a farm bill through by the end of the year?

There is.

In fact, I've been meeting with the what we call the Four Corners, the the people that are run the committees in house and then my counterpart in the Senate.

And so we are working together.

We're in this House.

The farmers are there.

Action cuts, the roof.

There are the 28.

And yet commodity prices are on the bottom four.

So they're way up.

Most of our producers rose anywhere over $300 an acre.

So it's really difficult, something that Congress needs to step in.

So they'll we have to continue to get the financing they need to or in the future.

And I really we need to step them right now kind of some economic disaster.

So it's a big job.

There's lots of good going on it.

You've been around, Steve, you know, since the farm bill is about Democrats.

It's about helping farm artists, just what they are about regions and the different commodities trying to get all and so again, everybody's work it's think it's going to require lot, but it's something we have to do to continue to have the cheapest, safest food supply of any world.

Well, in terms of an emergency package.

Would that be built into a farm bill?

Would that be a separate appropriate version or explain that what's what's being contemplated, What's likely to happen?

Right.

We're really lucky.

Two things, Steve.

We could have emergency package to get farmers through.

Right now.

The farm bill gives the new it would what it would do is provide a new insurance program, a new set of risk management tools for the farmers to use for the upcoming farm year.

So it really wouldn't pay until 2026.

But right now they're in dire straits.

So we could put one in and one of a couple of ways.

We could have two separate bills.

We could just have an emergency bill and then the farm bill or in the farm bill, we could make some of the provisions that we're doing regarding risk management, make it retroactive into this year, which would be a big help to the farmers.

So those are the kind of details that we're fleshing out right now.

Well, as the ranking member, I assume you and the chair are in conversations over that.

What is your preference and are you in tune in?

Yeah.

What's your preference?

And and does the chair agree with you?

Well, we're really trying to figure out what what is the easiest way to get it passed.

Most members of Congress want to get a farm bill done, so they look to us for leadership.

So we're really just trying to figure out the mechanics of it.

What would be the easiest thing to get passed?

What would be the most effective?

And that's really what what I'm meeting with my chairman about.

I'm the ranking member in the House.

Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Scott are meeting.

And then we're actually having what we call a Four Corners meeting where we all get together and sit down.

We're in the process of doing that.

Well, let me touch on this, too.

You noted, Senator, that it is an election year.

Obviously, members of your party hope to take control of the Senate, but in the event you don't miss, the gentlewoman from Michigan, I believe is Miss Stabenow is is retiring the next in line on the Democratic side, as Mr. Brown, who is in a very tough race.

And then I think Ms.. Klobuchar is up this year also.

But her her prospects appear with her voters.

Her electorate appears a little bit more sanguine than Mr. Browns does at this hour.

What what is there substantive disagreement or agreement any way between you and and the ranking Democratic members, the next likely chair, whoever it may be, on the Democratic side?

Are you guys pretty much in tune?

That's really a good question.

State Senator Brown from Ohio is is the is chairman of the Banking Committee.

So most people feel like he would go ahead and stay with banking and you can't do both.

You'd have to choose banking or agriculture.

So I think he stays with banking.

I think Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota would be the ranking member at that point.

And the the advantage there, I think, is that Senator Klobuchar is from you know, you think of Minnesota and it's got a couple of big cities.

But besides that, it's his role as Arkansas in they produce it's one of our leading agricultural states in the union.

A lot of soybeans up there.

And she's she's been very, very active on the committee and I think would be a great partner to work with in the future.

And so, as I said earlier, you know, truly these this isn't a Democrat or Republican saying it's just taking this massive bill.

We're talking about $1.5 trillion over ten years.

It's a lot of money and encompasses not only agriculture but nutrition and all of rural America, which is, you know, it's not hard driving around Arkansas, realizing that 53, I think of our 75 counties lost population.

Our small communities are struggling.

Agriculture results left.

So it's so important for so many different reasons.

And and let's stay with that for a second, if we could.

Senator, as massive as the farm bill is, the great majority of the farm bill is the way it's structured, way it's always been structured, those nutrition programs which greatly benefit urban America constitute the bulk of it.

It's about so about 85% now, 85 to 15.

The original farm bill was about scheduled to be about $687 billion.

And now that's ballooned and almost 1.5 trillion.

Almost all of that increases in nutrition.

And sadly, because of inflation, it's just really difficult out there.

35, 40% of the people on these programs are working.

One or two jobs are underemployed.

So it's the nutrition programs are important.

They're supportive.

We're very supportive.

But there is a finite amount of money that we can push in that direction.

We have to balance that out with the people that are actually producing the food, and that's our farm community.

So right now it's about 8515 and we actually need to put more farm in the farm bill so that our producers can be successful going forward.

And there's some deficit concern also on the AG front, trade deficit concern there is very much so.

We've tried with agriculture.

It's always been the shining star.

We've always run a surplus last two years.

Last year was the biggest ever.

This year will be bigger.

It's projected to be even a bigger deficit this next year of last three years.

So we're not doing a very good job.

40% of the product in Arkansas is exported.

We have to have the attitude that you've got one customer here and you've got thousands of customers someplace else and, you know, do the marketing.

So part of the trait of the farm bill actually provides funding to different organizations to help with that.

But it is sad.

The government simply is not doing a very good job of creating new trading partners and protecting the ones that we have.

Well, on on the farm fiscal fronts, on the financial front, there was a bit of good news, was there not?

The Fed, after all, whacked interest rates by really a half a point.

That's got to trickle down.

And also petroleum prices are trending down as well.

So that can't help but benefit the farm economy, at least only on the producer side right now.

How much?

How much?

Well, energy is you know, you can imagine if we were in a situation now where gas were $4 a gallon or 450 a gallon, what that would do is right now, even with with lower energy costs, the problem we have is most people just start having disposable income.

It doesn't matter what you know, if you're farming or what job you have.

So in the interest rates are important.

If you had a the average egg loan is about $350,000 to service that in March of 2021, that would cost you about $9,000 now, and I haven't factored in this half percent drop.

It would cost more like $24,000.

So we're getting some relief, you know, by the half percent drop.

But there's still a significant difference and it was just a few years ago.

So it's it's it's all kinds of costs.

The farmers you're incurring just like everybody else.

But but even more so in the farm economy.

What happens with with the regular businesses, They raise their prices.

Farmers can't do that.

They they're dependent on the international whatever it is, for corn or cotton or soybeans or whatever.

They can't just arbitrarily demand more money.

Well, there and there is, as anyone could see, sir, a great deal of turmoil on the foreign front in Asia, in the Pacific basin and in the Middle East.

This does not augur well for American export, possibly, whether it's ag or manufacturing.

What do you what's the outlook as you see it?

Well, I think it's really interesting, Steve, because people are starting to realize that they shouldn't put all their eggs in the Chinese basket.

We saw this during the pandemic, how dependent we were for medicines and you name it, the supply chain broke down and much of it was because we couldn't get stuff from China.

So the whole world is realizing that they're looking for reliable trading partners.

And the United States.

We got all kinds of faults and this and that, but we are a reliable trading partner.

So they're really begging us, you know, strike a deal with us, you know, reach out and we're just not showing up.

And I think my I'm not being Partizan and I think my a lot of my Democratic colleagues would agree with that.

So we've just got to do a much, much better job working the trade deals because it's really a fertile or fertile time.

We have to get some of these things done.

But it is so important as we go forward, not only for the farm economy but just for the economy of our country in general.

Yeah, Senator, we've got about a minute remaining, and I'd like to go back to the budget for just a second.

Your C.R.

goes through, well, basically the end of December that I'm reading that they're getting a little nervous over at the Pentagon.

They want a full funding bill so sequestration won't kick in.

What are the prospects for that?

No, I think, you know, you point out all the reasons that we need to get this done and they need they need certainty right now.

And so you can imagine what happens with the C.R.

is you have to you get the same amount of money and you have to spend it identical to the way you've been spending it in the past.

There's no ability to move those funds around.

So you can imagine as a business, if you don't know how much money you're going to get and you have no flexibility in using those dollars, how inefficient that is, particularly for somebody like our military, who we desperately need to step forward and do all that they can right now.

So it's very inefficient.

It makes no sense.

That's why we need to get it passed in December and not let it lapse into the next year.

Senator, got to end it there because we're simply out of time.

Always a pleasure to have you on.

Will you come back again soon?

Oh, very much so.

Thank you, Steve.

It's always be with me.

Thank you, sir.

And we'll be right back.

There was news of a different sort in Washington this week, as we mentioned, up top, and it was rather more uplifting than the debate over debt or diesel prices.

An American icon, a musical pioneer born and reared in Arkansas, joined 99 other legendary Americans enshrined in the nation's capitol.

Johnny Cash in bronze, the work of Arkansas sculptor Kevin Cressey.

The dedication ceremony was the second of its kind this year.

Arkansas, having decided to replace the previous two statues that each state is allotted beneath the Capitol dome.

A few months ago, it was civil rights icon Daisy Bates, the godmother of the Little Rock nine, whose likeness was installed.

Some highlights now from this week's events to the sculptor Kevin Cressey and all of our honored guests.

It is my pleasure as speaker of the House to welcome you all to the Capitol today in what is a truly remarkable occasion.

Today, we have the pleasure of recognizing, get this, the first musician to ever be honored with a statue here in the Capitol.

And Johnny Cash is the perfect person to be honored in that way.

He was a man who embodied the American spirit in a way that few could.

He was an everyday man.

He loved the fish and he suffered the pain of loss.

He was the son of Southern farmers and of the Great Depression Americans related to Johnny Cash.

So families across the country invited him into their homes through their radios and their record players because the man in black song of tragedies of life and the difficulties that Americans faced, he provided Americans hope.

Born in Arkansas during the Great Depression to a family of sharecroppers, he lived a rugged life and learned the importance of family, the land and Almighty God through his commendable service in the Air Force, as well as blue collar jobs in a factory and working as a salesman.

He lived the quintessential American Inn experience.

Upon entering the music scene in 1955, he possessed a unique voice, and his music had a magnetic quality that resonated with working people all throughout America, a style that continues to reverberate 70 years later.

When Cash visited Folsom Prison.

His most famous line was All Men in Black Bravado, a shot of man in Reno just to watch him die.

But Johnny Cash also used to say that he was two people.

Johnny is the nice one.

Cash causes all the trouble.

It's not hard to imagine that he too, looked out at that prison crowd and saw a version of himself staring back.

Johnny Cash was open about the struggles and the triumphs in his life.

He was a hymn singing Christian, but there were also times when he wrote that he felt like a walking vision of death, but that didn't contradict his image.

It was his image.

Cash's first big hit was called I Walk the Line.

In an era when most musicians images were carefully curated.

He was open about straddling the border between clean cut Johnny and cash down cash.

There are statues of great people throughout this capital, men and women of significant accomplishment.

But today marks a first.

Johnny Cash represents the first such statue of a professional musician.

And while many statues are of people some of us have never heard of.

This one will be of someone where people will see this masterpiece and know of this legendary singer songwriter represented.

That makes me proud.

A couple of weekends ago, while catching up on Arkansas Week on the public broadcast station, I heard Rosanne comment on the significance of this moment.

Her dad won many awards and accolades.

He's a Hall of Fame artist, one of the most recognizable figures in American history.

But to hear her say that this dedication, to have his likeness standing in this iconic symbol of freedom for all of the world, tops them all.

Gives perspective to this day.

And the artist Kevin Cressy, whose God given talent in this magnificent statue, is surpassed only by his incredible ability to portray Johnny Cash as he truly was, down to the finite detail in this statue.

Kevin I can actually see the gravel in his gut and the spit in his eye.

That's all I'm going to do of a morning show.

Throughout his legendary career that took him from town to town and literally around the globe.

Johnny Cash always carried Arkansas with him.

In fact, he once planted cotton in the front yard of his California home to remind him of life on the farm back in Mississippi County, Arkansas.

Cash was especially fond of another Arkansan, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose musical style of gospel infused blues and rock captivated him more than most other artists he would ever encounter.

If you can imagine J.R. Cash, as he is still known to the older generation in our family as an eight year old boy in the sweltering cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta and what they call the sunken lands of Arkansas, picking cotton and pulling a bag larger than himself with his family's New Deal cottage at the edge of the fields and then jump forward 84 years to this day and tell him that that little home is now a national heritage site and that his statue stands tall in our nation's capital.

He might say that he fulfilled the ultimate American dream and even achieved a sort of immortality long after I am gone.

My great great grandchildren may wander this hall and come upon their forebear, and they may wonder what made this man so great that he was accorded the honor of standing here in bronze.

And I would tell them these things.

This man was a living redemption story.

He encountered darkness and met it with love.

Dad owned his perseverance to the hard upbringing of his youth, and it instilled in him a work ethic for the rest of his life.

His nature was one of deep sensitivity and empathy to music, beauty and justice.

And he was a patriot in the truest ends of the word.

He loved the physical contours of America, and he knew every state intimately.

But most of all, he loved the idea of America as a place of dreams and refuge, freedom and wonder.

He wrote My mother when he was in the air Force that he loved, quote, the very rock and soil of the fields where he grew up.

And those rocks that soil the river, the floods, the hard times and the radio at the end of a long day, which pulled him towards his future.

They all showed up cinematically in his lyrics.

He had a natural sense of rhythm that was unique and rare.

He was a Shakespeare of the South.

I taught the weeping willow how to cry.

I showed the clouds had to cover up a clear blue sky and the rails are washed out north of town.

We had to head for higher ground.

Reams and reams of poetry spilled from him.

He was a flawed but profoundly humble, kind and compassionate man with a magnet for generosity of spirit who loved those who suffered because he knew great suffering and loss.

He loved those who reach for a better life because he picked cotton and sweated and toiled and took that sweat and used it as a template for art and service.

He loved those who failed and made terrible mistakes, but who admitted to their God in themselves, their failings because he himself on the darkness he wrestled with his whole life and he let is suffering, enlarge his heart rather than harden it with bitterness.

As he wrote most famously, I keep a close watch on this heart of mine.

I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

There is something beautifully symmetrical about Johnny Cash and civil rights icon Daisy Bates sharing representation of the great state of Arkansas.

They were both committed to justice for all and to advocacy for the marginalized and those who lived with the boot of oppression on their necks.

Although approached from different paths, they were both healers and unifiers.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine.

I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

I keep the ends out for the ties that bind because you're mine.

I walk the line, and that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching.

And see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.