"President Bush's commitment to $73.5 billion for agriculture underscores and amplifies his commitment to farmers in Iowa and throughout the country. It also shows how wrong the sky-is-falling arguments were last fall when some said if we didn't pass a farm bill right then and there ? even a farm bill that wasn't as good as it could be for Iowa ? we'd lose this level of funding. Farmers have a strong safety net for the year ahead. The challenge for Congress right now is to improve the pending farm bill and pass it."