NEW HOMESTEAD ACT SEEKS TO STEM POPULATION LOSS IN RURAL AREAS
Thursday, April 12, 2007
CONTACT: Justin Kitsch
or Brenden Timpe
PHONE: 202-224-2551
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced legislation Thursday to provide new tools to rural areas seeking to halt chronic out-migration, or population loss, and economically revitalize rural communities.
The bi-partisan legislation known as the "New Homestead Act" is co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Norm Coleman (R-MN), John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
Over the past fifty years, nearly two-thirds of rural counties in the Great Plains lost at least one third of their population, Dorgan said. In North Dakota, the problem shows no signs of slowing -- 47 of the state's 53 counties lost population between 2000 and 2005.
Chronic population losses drain a community of its work force, customer base and capital, making it difficult to attract new business and industries and to retain those already located in the community. Demographers predict that, left unchecked, such population losses and the problems they create will only continue and accelerate.
According to one expert, Dr. Richard Rathge of the North Dakota State Data Center, such losses have reduced the number of young people who make up the bulk of North Dakota's work force. He recently predicted that between 2000 and 2020, the number of North Dakotans aged 34 to 54 will decline from 183,434 to 146,717, a loss of nearly 37,000 people. By 2020, Rathge projected, there could be more North Dakotans age 65 and older than those in their prime working years.
Dorgan's legislation would offer people willing to commit to live and work in high out-migration rural areas for at least five years a number of financial incentives to help them buy a home, pay for college, build a nest egg and start a business. Among those incentives:
• Repaying up to $10,000 of a college loan;
• A $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of a new home;
• Home value protection, by allowing losses in home value to be deducted from federal incomes taxes;
• Establishment of Individual Homestead Accounts (IHA) that help people build savings and gain access to credit;
• Tax credits and venture capital to attract and grow businesses located in high out-migration rural counties.
The U.S. Senate has previously adopted parts of the New Homestead Act, but those provisions were not signed into law. Dorgan said he's hopeful the legislation can be enacted in the 110th Congress. He noted the Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Resolution, which the Senate adopted in March, includes provisions which anticipate a number of New Homestead Act proposals being enacted into law.
—END—