"Small farms help us maintain the quality of life that keeps us here," he said.That answer is very weird. By all accounts the farm bill does very little to help small family farms. [excellent article]
"It's tragic that families are not telling their kids to stay and run the family farm. We've got to turn that around."
McHugh, who serves about 660,000 constituents, many in remote areas of the North Country, said he also supports a better Farm Bill that will help local farmers survive against major farming conglomerates in the rest of the country.
"Small farms help us maintain the quality of life that keeps us here," he said.
"It's tragic that families are not telling their kids to stay and run the family farm. We've got to turn that around."
What's happened is, some farm families got big, but more got out. Subsidies have helped finance the expansion plans of the big guys while inflating the rents of the little guys. Ebberson's neighbor Mike Korth has a 1,000-acre (400 hectare) corn and soybean spread that would have been considered enormous a century ago but is now about average for the area. His township has only 39 families on 36 sq. mi. (94 sq km), a frontier-level population density. No wonder a Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City study found the rural counties most dependent on subsidies had the worst population losses and the weakest job growth.The Farm Bill always has bipartisan support, so Democrats are equally guilty.
Then this question by Plattsburgh attorney Mark Schneider: "How can you be part of a political party that has run this country into a ditch". Kind of a loaded question, but here is Mr. McHugh's answer.
"I want to make one thing clear; I work for you, and if my party is wrong, it's wrong,"That's not a very satisfying answer if that is the entire answer. If Mr. McHugh's party is wrong and he knows it is wrong, doesn't he have a responsibility to do something about it?
No comments:
Post a Comment