Mr. President. there is an old joke about the tombstone engraved with the words. "I told you I was sick." There are many of us in this body who do not want to come down to the floor of the Senate in October and say: We told you so. We told you the H2A temporary agricultural worker program was broken. And now there are crops rotting in the fields and supermarket bins are empty or produce prices are going through the roof. There is no satisfaction in being able to say "I told you so." when we have an opportunity to fix a problem before iJt becomes a crisis. This iW the first Congress in my memory that has made some real attempts to do just thatpractice preventive legislatingmost notably in our attempts to enact the first balanced budget in a generation. We have an opportunity to prevent a crisis this year by reforming the H2A temporary agricultural worker program in our immigration law. The H2A program was created because agriculture has a need. in many cases. for workers on a seasonal basis. This creates a unique combination of opportunities and problems for employer and employee. Most growers are able to employ employees who are citizens or otherwise in this country legally.
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H2A immigration