Actions -- More Effective than Words

We have a newly updated website underway. When we release it, you may expect this blog to be integrated into the web.

You may also expect us to track key votes in Congress. We will also be starting a "presidential candidate watch" in which our new site will offer easy access to progressive presidential candidates' positions on key rural issues.

Wyoming and Oklahoma -- The Real Story on Their Need for Disaster Assistance

In 2006, Wyoming had the worst case of drought in our country. Oklahoma was close behind, as was west Texas. President Bush and the Republican Majority in Congress didn't want to help so for two years in a row, they locked the disaster relief bill up in committee so there couldn't be a vote on the bill. Still, various Republican members from these states still talked a good game.

Georgia Congressman John Barrow (D-GA) got tired of this double-talk, so he started a discharge petition, i.e., a legal document which requires Members of Congress to sign if they want to vote on a specific issue.

My Rural America told the story in Wyoming:

In 2006, My Rural America and our Rural Leadership Coordinator Aaron Owens worked hard to bring the facts about the need for disaster assistance for drought victims to Wyoming citizens' attention.

By failing to sign a discharge petition that would require a vote on agriculture disaster assistance in the House of Representatives, Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., is “hanging Wyoming farmers out to dry,” according to My Rural America, a non-partisan educational organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in rural communities.

“Wyoming’s only representative has stood on the sidelines while her Republican friends have blocked drought relief, despite having told us she would ‘use some political capital’ to help farmers in her own state," said Aaron R. Owens, Rural Leadership Coordinator for My Rural America.

Owens, who lives in Laramie, said that only two Republicans – neither of them Rep. Cubin – have signed the petition that needs 218 signatures to force Congress to move agriculture disaster assistance legislation forward. “It is a classic case of Cubin telling her constituents and the press one thing in Wyoming but acting in another way when she is in Washington,” said Owens.-

Owens noted that 197 Members of Congress have united behind the effort to force a vote last month before the House of Representatives recessed until after the November elections. Despite the urging of more than 30 farm and allied organizations that encouraged all members of Congress to sign the discharge petition, the House Republican leadership prevailed when most GOP members with agricultural constituencies, including Cubin, declined to do so.

Representative Barbara Cubin (R-WY At Large) refused to sign the petition, but she still went from town to town to insist she was committed to getting assistance for drought victims. Essentially, she double-talked, but sadly, Wyoming newspapers refused to carry the story. This year, once again, Cubin voted no on disaster assistance.

Like Cubin, Frank Lucas (R-OK) also said he was for disaster assistance in 2006. He even sponsored his own bill, but when push came to shove, he failed to sign the discharge petition to get the final bill out of committee. Once again, local newspapers only carried stories that said what Lucas said, rather than what he did.

Cubin and Lucas were re-elected in November 2006 but voters -- starved for information, had no option but to believe what they said. At My Rural America, we believe actions are more important than words.

Torrington, Wyoming -- "Rural America: Invisible to Voters"

Joe Miklosi, candidate for Colorado State House -- District 9, brought this Denver Post story to our attention: "Rural America: Invisible to Voters"

In it, Denver Post writer Karen E. Crummy wonders why rural voters are often ignored.

The story serves as a prime example of why we've begun My Rural America, i.e., when rural citizens don't get the news and are locked out of easy access to high-speed Internet ... while their small town newspapers no longer have the resources to serve as community watch-dogs to tell the story about how national elected officials serve their communities, all too many rural citizens become quiet ... and too trusting.

Our favorite quote in the story:

• "Ignoring these [rural] areas can be politically lethal for candidates. While rural voters make up only about 23 percent of the electorate, they have affected the past four presidential elections."

The story continues, "Former President Clinton, a Democrat, appealed to enough rural residents to receive almost 50 percent of their votes in 1992 and 1996. President Bush won in 2000 and 2004 by netting 60 percent or more of the rural vote.

"It shows that to win as a Republican, you need the lion's share of rural votes. For Democrats to win, you have to neutralize those voters," said Seth McKee, a University of South Florida professor who analyzed rural voters in presidential elections from 1992 to 2004.

"Exit polling shows that religion, gender and what region of the country they live in take a back seat to the residents' rural status in voting, Mc Kee said."

... Well, yes! Residents' rural status matters, but rural residents have to be able to get the facts, too. Without news, without easy access to the facts -- voting records and accurate policy information, rural voters can easily waste their votes.

My Rural America sets the record straight. For an example about how we set the record straight, see our next story.

House Farm Bill Highlights

Over the next several days, we will be highlighting House passage of the Farm Bill. Special thanks go out to Tracy Hammond, who summarized the House approved bill -- H.R. 2419 for My Rural America.


The 2007 Farm Bill passed the House with a 231 to 191 vote. The vote was largely along party lines and some 57 votes short of being veto-proof despite the President’s threat to do so. Only 19 House Republicans voted for the bill. Most who did so came from rural districts and were wary of alienating voters who would benefit from the legislation. Further, just 14 Democrats broke ranks and voted against passage.

The administration announced July 25 that it would veto the bill after revelations that the bill would include a tax-related measure that would offset about $4 billion in additional nutrition funding. The administration is concerned also about the subsidy levels in the bill and various other issues. Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) has shrugged off the White House veto threat. "We take it with a grain of salt," Peterson said. "They said they wouldn't sign the 2002 Farm Bill and they did." He also noted that a president has not vetoed a Farm Bill in 40 years. If the president vetoes the bill, that action will not "go down well in farm country." Peterson has stated that he believed the Bush administration has been working against him on other fronts. Democrats likely would have had the veto-proof margin if House leaders did not choose to offset the $4 billion by including the controversial tax provision amending the tax code regarding rates paid by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. In fact, House Agriculture Committee ranking member Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) told lawmakers repeatedly that he could vote for the bill only if that language were scratched, and he later made good on his word with a "no" vote on final passage. The bill would bar farmers who have more than $1 million in annual income from collecting government subsidies and eliminate payments to those who earn between $500,000 and $1 million if less than 67 percent of that income comes from farming. Under current law, farmers with income in excess of $2.5 million annually are barred from receiving subsidies, unless 75 percent of their income is agriculture-related. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN), chairman of the Agriculture Committee and sponsor of the bill, said the payment limitations would save $226 million over five years, helping the bill comply with House budget rules. The bill also would increase the maximum in direct payments that an individual farmer could collect to $60,000 a year from $40,000. If a husband and wife both farm the same land and are both eligible, they could collect up to $120,000 a year. The House easily rejected a controversial amendment by a vote of 117 to 309, offered by Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI), that would cut subsidies completely and funnel most of that money into conservation programs. The proposal, floated by Kind and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), would have established farmers' savings accounts and allow for greater conservation and renewable energy spending in lieu of direct payments and subsidies. It would phase out federal farm subsidies over the next several years.

“This Farm Bill is about much more than farms. It is about the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and increasingly the fuel we will use. It assures that we will have a safe, strong food supply now and for years to come,” Chairman Peterson said. “I am proud of the balanced and forward-looking Farm Bill that we have passed supporting conservation, nutrition, rural, renewable energy, labor, and farm country.” Important highlights of the Farm Bill (H.R. 2419) include:

• Investing more than $1.6 billion in priorities to strengthen and support the fruit and vegetable industry in the United States. A new section for Horticulture and Organic Agriculture includes nutrition, research, pest management and trade promotion programs.
• Implementing Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for fruit, vegetables and meat after years of delay.
• Expanding the USDA Snack Program, which helps schools provide healthy snacks to students during after-school activities to all 50 states and continuing the DOD Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which provides a variety of fresh produce to schools.
  
• Strengthening and enhancing the food stamp program by reforming benefit rules to improve coverage of food costs and expand access to the program with additional funding support.
• Including key provisions that invest in rural communities nationwide, including economic development programs and access to broadband telecommunication services.
• Providing farmers participating in commodity programs with a choice between traditional price protection and new market-oriented revenue coverage payments.
• Strengthening payment limits to ensure that people making more than $1 million a year (adjusted gross income) can’t collect conservation and farm program payments and closing loopholes that allow people to avoid payment limits by receiving money through multiple business units.
• Extending and making significant new investments in popular conservation programs, including the Conservation Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, Environmental Quality Incentive Program, Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, and many others.
• Making important new investments in renewable energy research, development and production in rural America.
• Rebalancing loan rates and target prices among commodities, achieving greater regional equity.
• Establishing a new National Agriculture Research Program Office to coordinate the programs and activities of USDA’s research agencies to minimize duplication and maximize coordination at all levels and creates a competitive grants program.
• Protecting and sustaining our nation’s forest resources.

To be continued: Over the next few days, this website will also provide a more detailed summary of the various titles of the Farm Bill. Once this summary is completed, we'll begin our "watch" on the Senate which will be taking up the Farm Bill next.

OPPORTUNITY ... To Learn About the Extra Dangers Our Rural Soldiers Are Facing

Dr. William O'Hare, author of the Carsey Institute's study of rural casualties, will be speaking tomorrow -- Saturday, September 8th, at "The War and Rural America" forum which is being hosted by Farms Not Farms and Family Farm Defenders.

Sadly, the Carsey Institute study finds that soldiers from rural areas are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq at a +60 percent higher rate that those from urban areas. You can read the study for yourself at "US Rural Soldiers Account for a Disproportionately High Share of Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan".

Although we know it's likely that you may not be able to go to this conference, Dr. O'Hare is willing to do interviews, and we suggest you call your local newspaper, asking your editor to call Dr. O'Hare and ask him why rural soldiers and their families are carrying the heavier burden in these occupations.