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“SAM DONALDSON, GIVE THE MONEY BACK” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S4145-S4146 on March 17, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SAM DONALDSON, GIVE THE MONEY BACK
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I read a rather interesting article--a rather shocking article--in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about affluent urban farmers getting crop subsidies.
Lo and behold, I was absolutely shocked, as I think most Americans will be when they learn, and those that did learn, about Sam. Now I am talking about Sam Donaldson. Let me say right now, Sam, wherever you are, come out of hiding. Sam, come out of hiding and give the money back.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this Wall Street Journal article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
As Congress Considers Slashing Crop Subsidies, Affluent Urban Farmers
Come Under Scrutiny
(By Bruce Ingersoll)
Winnetka, IL.--The neighbors on Woodley Road know next to nil about Helen Pinnell, but they assume she is loaded. How else could she afford a multimillion-dollar home here in one of suburban Chicago's most exclusive enclaves?
Her neighbor next door, Marlo Brown, is stunned to hear that an heir to the fabled King Ranch in Texas left his $10-million share of the vast cattle-and-oil empire to Mrs. Pinnell more than 20 years ago. ``Isn't that wonderful luck,'' exclaims the elderly Mrs. Brown.
Mrs. Pinnell, it turns out, is doubly lucky. As if oil royalties and agricultural revenues from her 87,000-acre spread on the Texas Gulf Coast weren't enough, she collects farm subsidy payments each year from the Agriculture Department. Since 1985, the total payout to her and three Pinnell family trusts comes to nearly $1.5 million, according to USDA payment data.
Throughout the country, there are thousands of other absentee landlords in Mrs. Pinnell's city-slicker shoes, including ranch-owner Sam Donaldson of ABC-TV fame, a New York merchant banker, two scions of an antebellum cotton planter, even an unidentified $400,000-subsidy recipient with a distinctly nonrural zip code--90210--in Beverly Hills, Calif.
antisubsidy backlash
How long they can count on government checks coming in the mail depends on how much money Congress whacks out of the crop-subsidy programs this year. With the 1995 farm bill debate in full cry, lawmakers already are trying to rescind funds from this fiscal year's Agriculture Department budget. Whipping up an anti-subsidy backlash are environmentalists and conservative Republicans, who contend that the Depression-era farm programs are badly out of date and out of control. While continuing to provide a safety net for struggling farmers, the critics say, the subsidy programs increasingly pad the cushion under already comfortable off-the-farm farmers. For the first time, the Environmental Working Group has documented the extent to which suburban and city dwellers benefit from farm subsidies.
``We have no beef with people investing in farms, but why are taxpayers covering the risks of an absentee North Dakota farm owner living in Manhattan?'' wonders Kenneth Cook, president of the Washington-based watchdog group.
Using computerized USDA data, the group has traced the flow of hundreds of millions of tax dollars to off-the-farm farmers--including corporations and partnerships--in the 50 largest U.S. cities since 1985. Chicago's farm owners, for example, collected $24 million over the last decade. But if you add in Mrs. Pinnell's hometown, Winnetka, and other
[[Page S4146]] Chicago suburbs, the total swells to $55 million.
Mrs. Pinnell was once secretary for a plumbing company. She owes her wealth to a grandson of 19th century cattle baron Richard King, Edwin Atwood, whom she befriended in his old age. In the early 1970s, she took over Mr. Atwood's King Ranch holdings and bought out another heir and a Chicago policeman who had been bequeathed part of the ranch by yet a third heir.
In Texas, Mrs. Pinnell has her own cattle brand, a big ranch house, plenty of cattle, a small field of oil wells pumping away and about 30,000 acres rented to cotton and sorghum farmers. Her land is bordered by the late Nelson Rockefeller's 6,000-acre spread, now owned by his two sons.
``Take-Charge'' Landlord
``She hardly shows up down here,'' says ranch manager Jerry Taylor. But when she does, she takes charge. Says Max Dreyer, a retired farmer in nearby San Perlita, Texas: ``When they're rounding up cattle, she won't even let the helicopter pilots fly over the house.''
Here in Winnetka, Mrs. Pinnell and her husband, Curtis, a retired railroad freight agent, stay behind the double doors and two-story Doric columns of their immense brick house. Members of the Women's Garden Club of Woodley Road see them only in passing on the road. In her red Mercedes, Mrs. Pinnell scoots over to an office she keeps in the nearby suburb of Northbrook, sometimes to confer with her attorney, Richard Williams. While his client won't comment, Mr. Williams plays down the amount of the subsidies she gets, which include disaster assistance and conservation payments.
``There are lots of people with smaller farm operations that get more subsidies,'' he says.
In New Mexico, Sam Donaldson passes for a big-time rancher, absentee or not. He is the third-largest recipient of wool and mohair payments in Lincoln County, where he runs flocks of sheep and Angora goats on his sprawling spread near Hondo, N.M., according to Allen (Bill) Trammell, the county executive director for the Combined Farm Services Agency. Over the last two years, $97,000 in subsidy checks have gone to Mr. Donaldson's address in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. What's more, under an agricultural conservation cost-sharing program, Mr. Donaldson got $3,500 earlier to defray the cost of watering facilities for his livestock.
An assistant to Mr. Donaldson says he isn't available for comment.
fifth avenue farmer
New Yorker Roslyn Ziff, a retired actress and opera singer, adores her 67-year-old friend Henry Warren. ``He's the only man I know who farms on Fifth Avenue,'' she says. For years, Mr. Warren has seen his psychotherapy patients, lived on the seventh floor of 27-story building at 1 Fifth Avenue and managed a Nebraska farm from afar. Told he was the biggest recipient of farm subsidies on Manhattan--$558,000 since 1985--his reply was: ``Good for me!'' But he adds that ``it's good for consumers'' because farm programs help ensure a stable food supply at relatively low prices.
This year, the retired Mr. Warren is leasing his land in Holt County for cash, which means he will no longer get subsidy payments. But that doesn't mean he will have to go cold turkey. The Agriculture Department, because of a big corn surplus, is paying farmers to hold their corn off the market. Mr. Warren figures to collect about $6,000 in storage fees this year, just as he got $81,000 in the late 1980s.
``That's outrageous,'' Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney says of her New York constituent's diet of subsidies. ``It points to the hypocrisy of cutting Food Stamps and nutrition programs.''
Another Nebraska farm-owning New Yorker is Daniel Lamprecht, an agribusiness deal-maker for ING Capital Holdings Corp.'s merchant banking arm. Living in midtown Manhattan, he has collected $158,000 in payments over the last decade, mostly for keeping his hilly--and highly erodible--cropland in the Conservation Reserve Program. All along, he admits, he has dreaded being found out.
``I'm the fourth generation to own this property,'' he says. ``I'm loath to give it up. It isn't a hobby. It's an economic enterprise.'' It would be unfair, he argues, for Congress to deprive his 1,060-acre farm of subsidies, either because of his off-farm income or his upscale New York address.
Far to the south, Jack Northington Shwab and his sister Clara Jane Lovell own 4,000 acres of farm land in Egypt, Texas, where their ancestor, Captain W.J.E. Heard, settled in the late 1840s and built a great plantation. Today, busloads of tourists and history buffs tour the old place and the museum in the rear. Meanwhile, three farmers till the land and share with the landlords rice and corn receipts as well as the subsidy payments. Over the last 10 years, Mr. Shwab and Mrs. Lovell have each collected $344,000, he on Hilton Head Island, S.C., and she on Nantucket Island off Massachusetts, according to USDA payment data.
While calling himself ``a retired investor,'' Mr. Shwab still looks after a portfolio of stocks and bonds as well as his Texas land holdings and natural gas wells. He, for one, is becoming alarmed about the antisubsidy rumblings on Capitol Hill. ``I do intend to write my congressman,'' he says. But first he must figure out which one--his representative from South Carolina or his representative from Texas.
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I was shocked to learn that Sam Donaldson, who happens to be one of the most highly paid journalists in the United States, earning millions of dollars, is collecting welfare--
$100,000 in welfare payments--from the U.S. Government. That is right. It is called the Wool and Mohair Subsidy Program. It is supposed to help farmers.
Sam Donaldson has received almost $100,000 for a ranch in New Mexico while he lives right outside the Capitol here in suburban Washington, in Virginia. I think it is an outrage. It is wrong. It is wrong and it must be stopped.
Does anyone really believe that Sam Donaldson is a real sheep farmer? Really? I see him on TV all the time.
Sam, do the right thing. You know what that is. Give the money back.
Now, there are plenty of other examples of absentee landlords receiving these farm subsidies, but it is particularly glaring that millionaire Sam Donaldson is getting this taxpayers' money.
Sam Donaldson, give that money back.
It is my understanding that Mr. Donaldson is the third largest recipient of wool and mohair payments in Lincoln County, NM--not Virginia, or New Mexico. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Donaldson received $97,000 in subsidy checks over the last 2 years. And under another Government agricultural program--this time for conservation sharing--Mr. Donaldson got $3,500 to defray the costs of watering facilities for his livestock.
And here we have Sam Donaldson, the self-appointed conscience of America, who was said to be unavailable for comment. Can you imagine, Mr. President, if you were unavailable for comment?
I can imagine why.
Sam Donaldson, come out of hiding and give back to the American people--the taxpayers--that $97,000.
There is one other question I would like to pose. This program is going to be phased out over the next 2 years. I want to know whether Mr. Donaldson is going to continue to receive those subsidies, or is he going to stop it? Americans have a right to know.
I hope, Sam, you give that money back.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I might first announce that we believe there is just one additional speaker. Senator Heflin will be coming to the floor to speak. I will go forward here, as if in morning business, until he arrives, and then I will be happy to turn the floor over to him. Then it is my understanding the Senate will stand in recess for the weekend.
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