Mr. Kurtz links to and links up an article on Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack's warning that rural America is losing political relevance because it's acting like Kristi Noem:
"Why is it that we don't have a farm bill?" said Vilsack. "It isn't just the differences of policy. It's the fact that rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that and we better begin to reverse it."
For the first time in recent memory, farm-state lawmakers were not able to push a farm bill through Congress in an election year, evidence of lost clout in farm states.
...Vilsack criticized farmers who have embraced wedge issues such as regulation, citing the uproar over the idea that the Environmental Protection Agency was going to start regulating farm dust after the Obama administration said repeatedly it had no so such intention [Mary Claire Jalonick, "USDA Chief: Rural America Becoming Less Relevant," AP, 2012.12.08].
Secretary Vilsack digs into our culture and warns that the same attitude that elects red-herring-mongers like Kristi Noem also hurts rural America's chances of recruiting and keeping young people:
Vilsack, who has made the revitalization of rural America a priority, encouraged farmers to embrace new kinds of markets, work to promote global exports and replace a "preservation mindset with a growth mindset." He said they also need to embrace diversity because it is an issue important to young people who are leaving rural areas.
"We've got something to market here," he said. "We've got something to be proactive about. Let's spend our time and our resources and our energy doing that and I think if we do we're going to have a lot of young people who want to be part of that future" [Jalonick, 2012.12.08].
There's that word diversity again. Secretary Vilsack is talking about something much deeper than skin color. He's talking about making room in rural communities for people with different education, experience, and lifestyles. He's talking about welcoming people with different ideas and ambitions that will broaden rural America's economic and cultural portfolio, recognize opportunities that the traditional mindset might miss, and make rural America a more appealing place for young people to live and work and raise their families.
Meanwhile, Kristi Noem is telling the same old fable about the estate tax threatening family farms. Sigh.
Related: Voter turnout in the 2012 general election was still highest in rural America, but rural turnout dropped more from 2008 than did urban turnout. The decline came more from rural Dems staying home... perhaps from rural Dems feeling outnumbered and worn out by their majority GOP neighbors.
Also related: The USDA is trying to get young people to understand the importance of the Farm Bill.
Speaking of real policy work that supports young farmers, the USDA gave SDSU Extension $50,000 last month at the Local Foods Conference to keep up its good work in developing our local food system. Support for local foods is just part of the work happening under the USDA's Know Your Food, Know Your Farmer program, a real and useful program that Rep. Noem voted to defund last year.
The right wing Christianists seem to forget there is a big country out there. This is not the country of the 1890's William Jennings Bryan any longer. Noem and her fundie bunch are going to shove their crap down our throats even if it chokes the country. We are going to repent on our bended knee before they are done.
.
These people do not care if they destroy the earth and all it's inhabitants. Their religion and selfishness are the the most important values. They do not want to 'save' the world so much as to own the world.
.
The fake values add to their fake lives.
USDA releases Sacred Sites Report:
http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/USDAOC-60bd91#.UMYI1cfNFk8.twitter
Yur darn sure no math teacher Cory when it comes to hitting Noem on estate issues.
Assume if you will a very small ranch in our country having an estate value of 2.1 million. 700 dollars per acre on 3000 acres as somewhat random figures. It has been in the family a few generations and the current basis from the last inheritance sits at 75/acre.
.
We know the estate tax bill is 605,000 based upon 55% of anything over a million. How many acres do we need to sell to pay the tax based upon the value of 700/acre?
.
We need about 840,000 to pay the tax bill after 20% cap gain and another 10% for the auction or realtor. That is 1200 acres of an already marginally sized ranch. You've just broken their back.
.
The vultures who pick the remains ahead of family are no less than treasonous criminals, stripping constitutional rights of all who've formed this country.
.
Noem has issues, this is not one of them.
These farms were hacked from The Great Sioux Nation and smaller farms mean truck crops instead of unsustainable industrial agriculture: let them eat glyphosate.
Someone needs to tell Kristi that South Dakotans have heard her poor estate tax story probably thousands of time. She should broaden it, and bring in a few farm families personal stories about the estate tax too. Come on, be the politician!
'Lar', don't ya know ranch country ain't a truck garden in disguise? They already tried that a hundred years ago.
You got a mouth Jenny, you tell her.
Les, remind me how estate tax was even an issue given that Mrs. Arnold was still alive.
It was bedtime when I saw this but since you ask.
I have no idea what value the estate had Cory. I have worked with an estate that split with the mother and children at the fathers death. I can only assume something similar with her family. I'm guessing that's in the court house if you doubt her word.
Each generation should be able to pay for it's own wealth on their own shoulders. Who says you have to sell property to pay taxes. Borrow the money and face the real world like the poor people who didn't inherit anything. I started farming with no money and no inheritance, father in the nursing home, and two young siblings -ages 2 and 11 at home with Mom. The whole estate tax whine and cry-is what it is-whine and cry.
One of these days, I'm going to get to Hamlin County.
Charlie, at peril of getting too personal about your books, would the estate tax, either in its current form or in the fiscal-cliff version that returns to original rates, dissolve your farm?
...and maybe Charlie's point about getting a loan is the big point. The fact is that Kristi's clan did not lose their farm. The loan they took out worked out fine, and they went on to cash in on over $3M in farm subsidies. So she really is just whining about a problem that didn't destroy her family farm.
Maybe the problem is not the estate tax (an important tool in preventing the concentration of wealth) but the ag-industrial complex that makes it difficult to get into and stay in farming without accumulating so much wealth. If Kristi supported Know Your Farmer and other programs to promote local foods, maybe we'd see more families able to farm smaller plots profitably and stay below the estate tax threshold.
No it would not Cory. If the next generation really wants to farm, handling or doing the debt service on a loan to pay the taxes is workable. What you see now is certain last names accumulating land because of their "head start" on inheriting land. Hutterite colonies because of their corporate structure never pay an estate tax. They are one of the most aggresive land buyers in South Dakota. That just gives you a glimpse of what life in SD land buying is all about without an estate tax.
Testor quit worrying. They (the Right Wing Extremists) are NEVER going to own us. They were severly weakend after this past election and as time goes on and they continue to get more and more and more angry...the more they are going to weaken themselves. I find it entertaining actually to watch them in their hostility as they further defeat themselves. The Right Wing Extremists are like the crazy guy who yells that everyone is crazy, except him. He's finally left isolated, out of touch, and then...the mental hospital van finally pays him a visit. LOL
...And another thing Testor, you live in a Right-Wing Extremist bubble in South Dakota. I've since moved to Oregon and found out that South Dakota is just a little bubble in the middle of the nation, which is politically no-match compared to much larger population states like Oregon. Once you are out of that bubble you soon realize the rest of the nation is actually leaving states like South Dakota behind in politics and everything else. So, no worries here...
Interesting g-man. Appears 90+% of the land mass disagrees with you. This election held two so non election types we couldn't draw 50 % of the voters to the polls.
.
But you are right about one thing, the right wing extremists are not going to own us and neither are you left wing extremists.
Les, key point: "90+% Land Mass" is not the same as "Majority Population Base." The land mass you are referring to is huge, but, lacks the population to do anything against the bigger population bases. ;)
Urban beats Rural everytime and Urban is definitely not in the Republican column. So, yes you have all that land and nothing else.
Time will tell G-man. Remember who holds the land when you hit the grocery store, gas station etc. I guess you can just try and take it away then. Oh and the other small detail. I think the red area is quite well armed also. Of course being the G-man you already knew that! ;-)
Tocqueville II.II.19 shows that American farms were always commercial and industrial, contradicting the feudal casuitry about the inherited family farm
President of MSU on higher ed investment, diversity:
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/article_1b09d556-42ed-11e2-8586-0019bb2963f4.html
Les, you're playing Risk. G-Man is playing realpolitik, and so is Vilsack. Holding all that land hasn't made anyone budge on a Farm Bill yet.
Cory, those voter numbers mean very little. 57% turnout numbers prove to me there was a great number of GOP who voted for none of the above.
.
Real politiks happens when there's something to be real about and at this moment 100% of us are taking what we get. The rest is all talk. Smoke and mirrors.