Sound economic policy consists of targeted tax relief, fiscal discipline, and the removal of obstacles to entrepreneurship. In Nebraska, our economic strength largely depends on the strength of small businesses and family farms. My service on the House Agriculture and Small Business Committees is focused on public policies that help create economic opportunities for farmers, ranchers, and entrepreneurs.
Agricultural and Rural Economic
Development: The Farm Bill
The Nebraska values of family life, hard work, and personal responsibility are formed most profoundly on the family farm. Good farm policy should help grow new opportunities for farmers while preserving the best of these traditions.
This year the House passed the 2007 Farm Bill (H.R. 2419), which included three of my initiatives for increasing opportunity in rural America. These include the aforementioned new Rural Energy Self-Sufficiency Initiative that would provide grants to rural communities seeking to become energy self sufficient through the use of renewable sources such as biofuels, biomass, biogas, wind, and solar; an adjustment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Value Added Producer Grants Program that would target grant support to small or mid-sized farmers who are developing new uses and creative marketing strategies for their products; and an administrative change allowing school systems to give preference to local foods in their school meal programs. The House Farm Bill, although it did not in my view move aggressively enough to cap large farm payments, made progress in the important areas of agricultural entrepreneurship, ag-based renewable energy, and creative conservation. I supported its passage and am hopeful Congress can work together to pass a new Farm Bill soon.
As the ranking member of the Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Rural and Urban Entrepreneurship, I led a hearing recently to determine how government resources in the Small Business Administration (SBA) and USDA can most effectively be coordinated. The hearing focused on one such effort between SBA and the USDA’s Rural Development agency that provides bank lender training on various federal and state loan guarantee programs. This effort has shown early success in Nebraska and could become a model for future efforts across the nation. The hearing also explored ways that SBA and USDA Rural Development can work together to facilitate renewable energy development.
Nebraska is a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family. It is important that we examine how public policies can work to promote opportunity and entrepreneurship in our rural communities.