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Opinion

Harris-Walz has a Serious Plan for Rural America

By October 26, 2024No Comments

The plan for rural communities offers to equip the nearly 50 million rural Americans with the tools and resources they need, not just to get by but to get ahead, e.g.,

STRENGTHENING THE BACKBONE OF THE RURAL ECONOMY

Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are committed to helping rural communities grow and thrive economically.  They are fighting to lower prices for Americans, including through tax cuts for 100 million working and middle-class families and policies to lower the price of housing, groceries, and health care.  They are also supporting small businesses by cutting red tape and proposing a ten-fold increase in the tax deduction for new businesses.

IMPROVING HEALTH CARE

WHILE HELPING FAMILIES MANAGE THE CHALLENGES OF KIDS AND SENIORS

  • Strengthen Rural Health Care by Adding 10,000 Health Care Professionals and Expanding Telemedicine
  • Cut the Number of Ambulance Deserts in Half
  • Keep Rural Hospitals and Pharmacies Open
  • Support the Next Generation of Small- and Mid-sized Farmers and Ranchers
  • Strengthen the Backbone of the Rural Economy with Investments in Housing, Child Care, and Senior Care.

The lack of these policies has made life particularly difficult for rural Americans and their families.  Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz are proving daily that they understand the needs of rural Americans and are committed to leading a government that serves all the people.

We have a US House of Representatives whose majority does not serve the people.  This Republican majority can not pass something as basic as the Farm Bill.

The Farm Bill expired more than a year ago.  Republican House Members refused to pass it because they wanted a 20% cut to the funding for feeding hungry kids and their families.  15.4% of rural families live in poverty, and 11.9% of urban families live in poverty.   House Republicans’ determination to stop the Farm Bill’s passage so people can go hungry is impossible to understand.

Perhaps worse than this stalemate is how the House and Senate Republicans buckled under Trump’s demand that they refuse to repair the border/immigrant situation.  Trump demanded that Senator James Lankford (R-OK) drop the carefully crafted bill that both parties supported, so Republicans changed their votes.

Trump preferred chaos.  He is proving that he does not want the government to work.  He stopped the solution related to border/immigration challenges, and if he wanted a Farm Bill, he could have influenced the “Go along, Get along” Republicans to pass the bill.  He did not.  He, too, prefers hungry children.

Here at MY RURAL AMERICA, we oppose chaos.   We oppose hungry kids.   We recognize that the Farm Bill plays a significant role in rural economics, and the Repubicans stopped the Farm Bill.   We oppose the fact that Trump prefers chaos — chaos in farm markets, chaos at the packing plants and dairy farms where immigrants work, and chaos everywhere.

We understand how everything in rural America is more complex than in urban America.  The complications related to distance, poverty, news deserts, and corrupted news found in all too many communications systems are challenges that have long been ignored.   Thanks to the Infrastructure Bill that Harris worked hard to pass and which Walz took full advantage of for Minnesota, High-Speed Internet is finally becoming commonplace in rural America.

But now, we have the opportunity to elect people who understand us—Kamala Harris, who grew up middle class and worked her way through college, and Tim Walz, who lost his Dad as a teen, worked on farms as a teen and grew up in a tiny Nebraska town.

Between the two of them, they have crafted policy proposals that we need in rural America.  Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz have proven they understand how BIG AG/corporate America has hurt the land, slowed competition, and left out too many rural Americans who work daily to feed America and the world.

Harris-Walz Campaign:  Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s Plan for Rural Communities (PDF)

Theodore Conservation Partnership:  The Farm Bill Expired.   Now What?