Tom Vilsack is a rurally focused individual. The Democrat is a former Iowa governor – who is currently the only Department of Agriculture Secretary President Barack Obama has had.
Vilsack is, of course, a partisan politician. He was a dark horse on the short list to be presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick. He wants Democrats to win elections.
And it was Donkey victories he last week discussed on former Obama political advisor David Axelrod’s podcast. According to Politico, Vilsack articulated that “Democrats must stop ignoring rural voters if they ever hope to erase severe deficits in those parts of the country.”
Vilsack is – more than a mite mistaken. At this point, rural voters would LOVE for Democrats to ignore them. Democrat ignorance of their existence would be a marked improvement. Because right now, what Democrats are doing – is destroying them. In particular – President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Is EPA Destroying Rural America?
The EPA Is Turning Water On Farms Into A Weapon Against Farmers
Ah yes – farmers. Of course, farmers are a very important subset of very important rural America. To which Vilsack paid additional lip service.
“‘The food we eat, the water we drink, the energy we use, a significant percentage of the military we rely on comes from rural America,’ Vilsack said. ‘Folks in rural America do not believe there is a recognition or appreciation on the part of Democrats for that contribution to the country.’”
No “recognition or appreciation,” Secretary Vilsack? That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is your Understatement of the Week. What this administration apparently has for farmers and their fellow rurals – is loathing and contempt. Embodied in an endless avalanche of regulatory assaults.
Thanks to EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, American Farmers Are a Newly Endangered Species
EPA Regulations Suffocating U.S. Agriculture
Ranchers, Farmers Fear Eco-Terrorists After EPA Releases Private Info
EPA Funded Attack Ads Against Farmers
Given this abysmal record, I don’t understand how ANY rural voter could vote Donkey. Republicans and rural voters – have a little more in common, to say the least.
For starters, Republicans would like the federal government to stop being an overt enemy to all things rural. Again, government stepping back to doing nothing would be a most welcome change.
And not just with regard to the cavalcade of new, anti-rural regulations. Rural voters want less government – all the way round.
Which means, for example, they want actually free trade: “Free trade deals reduce government….Less taxes and tariffs, less subsidies, less government-favoritism.”
Actually free, less-government-trade abroad – means we get to less government domestically too. Because we’re trading away pieces of domestic government inanity.
To wit: A longtime bane to conservatives’ existence – the Farm Bill. We can start with sugar:
“Florida Rep. Ted Yoho (has) put forth a resolution ‘expressing the sense of Congress that all direct and indirect subsidies that benefit the production or export of sugar by all major sugar producing and consuming countries should be eliminated.’…”
And we can take this free trade approach light years beyond just sugar – and light years beyond just subsidies. We free trade away more and more of the Farm Bill – and there will be less and less to renew.
And we can free trade away all sorts of additional government – tariffs, subsidies, regulations – that has nothing to do with farm stuffs.
Ted Yoho – is a Republican. Of the Republicans who are offering a less government approach – to farmers, rural voters, and everyone else.
After eight years of the Huge Government, anti-farmer, anti-rural Democrat Obama Administration. Which has resulted in less farms, less farmers, ever-more rural nightmares – and just about the worst economic recovery ever.
For which Party should farmers, rural voters, and everyone else vote?
It couldn’t be more obvious.
Sorry, Secretary Vilsack.
This first appeared in Red State.