Blueprint for Rural America 2009 Contains the Following:

• Build a Solid Foundation of Prosperity for America’s Family Farmers, Ranchers, and Foresters
• Respond to the national Financial Crisis That is Sweeping Across Rural America
• Expand Telecommunications Services in Rural Areas
• Achieve Energy Security for Rural America
• Improve the Quality and Availability of Rural Health Care
• Promote Practical and Effective Immigration Reform
• Support Transportation Improvements that Protect the Freedom of Mobility
• Strengthen Civic Participation in Our Society
• Enhance Public Safety and Homeland Security in Rural Areas
• Improve the Quality of Rural Education

Introduction-

The National Grange, the nation’s oldest general farm and rural public interest organization, has developed a nine-point program to revitalize rural America and assure U.S. agricultural prosperity. The Grange has provided a grassroots voice for individuals, families, farmers, and rural communities since 1867. Today, Grange members, affiliated with more than 2,700 local, county, and state Grange chapters across the nation, are leaders in developing and advocating policies that benefit their communities.

1. Build a Solid Foundation of Prosperity for America’s Family Farmers, Ranchers, and Foresters

America’s family farmers, ranchers, and foresters are a highly diverse and constantly evolving group of more than 2.2 million entrepreneurs who differ greatly in the size of their operations, the products they produce, their enterprise structure, their needs for capital and financing, their use of farm labor, geographic location, environmental challenges, marketing decisions, and annual revenues derived from their agricultural operations. Fewer than 6% of U.S. farms today are large, commercial scale, farming-only businesses. These roughly 125,000 farms produce 75% of all domestic agricultural production. The remaining 94% of farms in the United States incorporate non-farm income as part of their business plan. The National Grange believes that Federal farm programs should foster increased participation in the agricultural sector as well as the broadest practical distribution of agricultural production by actively encouraging more Americans to include farming or ranching as part of their entrepreneurial business or personal lifestyle goals. According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, a majority of the farmers in our nation are over 57 years old and 35% of our farmers are over the age of 65. Farm policy must assure that today’s family farmers can retire with dignity and that their productive resources will be transferred to a new generation of farmers and rural entrepreneurs. Farm programs should reward innovative and sustainable practices, encourage sound conservation techniques, preserve prime agricultural land, assure compliance with existing international trade agreements, respond quickly to natural disasters, and facilitate the introduction of cost saving and environmentally beneficial new technologies for all segments of the agriculture sector. Finally, farm policy must protect farmers from risks that are beyond their control and from the undue concentration of market power that restricts competition or entry into the agriculture sector.

Action Plan

1. Support farm programs that make available credit, risk management, income support, and environmental stewardship for family farmers, ranchers and foresters, regardless of the crop or livestock they produce. Support sustainable practices like part-time, new uses, low investment/expense, aquaculture, agri-tourism, direct-to-consumer, and organic farming.
2. Protect farmers who rely on commodity markets or contract production from monopoly and market manipulation. Allow all farmers in a designated disaster county to be eligible for federal or state agriculture disaster assistance programs. Support country of origin labeling, food origin traceability , and voluntary national animal identification programs that protect the privacy of participating farmers.
3. Continue and expand direct federal government purchases of dairy products to support prices received by dairy farmers. Support direct financial assistance, such as the MILC program, for moderate-sized dairy farms as well as a farmer financed supply management/herd reduction programs .
4. Combat trade distorting practices instituted by foreign governments, such as currency manipulation and unilateral repudiation of sovereign debt, that make it more difficult for  U.S. farmers to export their products. Continue cost effective export promotion programs, such as the Market Access Program, at current levels.
5. Facilitate the generational transfer of assets to a new generation of family farmers, ranchers, and foresters by: extending the existing $500,000 per couple federal capital gains tax exclusion for private residences to agricultural land and/or to the sale of development or water rights on agricultural land; supporting federal programs for agricultural land use preservation and conservation practices on private land; supporting tax simplification for family farmers; supporting reform and eventual elimination of the estate tax and supporting accelerated depreciation of capital assets for farms and rural businesses.

2. Respond to the National Financial Crisis That is Sweeping Across Rural America

Today our nation faces the worst financial crisis in a generation. The financial crisis did not arise from the actions of businesses along the quiet main streets of rural America but its impact is being felt disproportionately in farming and rural communities. Today, rural counties are losing jobs at a faster rate than urban or suburban counties. Especially hard hit are rural counties dependant on manufacturing and low wage services, like call centers. Even the few remaining farming dependant rural counties are experiencing a sharp and painful economic downturn after posting record net farm income in 2008. Yet, throughout rural America entrepreneurs and small businesses remain the primary engine of prosperity. A larger portion of jobs in rural areas are held by people who are self employed, or who work directly for someone who is self employed, than in urban or suburban communities. Immediate action by the federal government to revive the national economy by cushioning the impacts of widespread unemployment, creating new jobs through extensive investments in rural public works infrastructure programs, restoring confidence in the financial system, and protecting the American taxpayer should be the overriding priority of the President of the United States and the Congress. Further investigation and possible prosecution or civil action against individuals involved in the collapse of the banking and financial industry should also be vigorously pursued. Companies that engaged in greed, corruption, incompetence, or fraudulent business practices should not be rewarded with taxpayer bailouts. Strict limits must be placed on the amounts of compensation to executives of companies that receive bailouts. Indefinite, direct government ownership or control of private business must be avoided at all costs. All major corporations, especially banks and financial institutions, that are deemed “too big to fail” and that have fallen into receivership or direct government ownership should be quickly restructured, broken up into small competitive businesses, or processed through bankruptcy in order to return their productive assets to the private sector. As the financial crisis has spilled into the personal credit, small business, and farming sectors, rural entrepreneurs who are unable to get credit (and who are largely ineligible for direct government “bailouts”) are forced to close operations and sell assets. With the looming possibilities of large scale personal and small business bankruptcies, immediate action should be taken to regulate and restructure small business lines of credit, home mortgages, home equity loans, and credit cards, in order to require that loan terms are presented in easy to understand language. Variable interest rates should be restricted during the crisis to no more than five percent above the prime-lending rate. In the long run, systematic reforms to the federal government’s fiscal policy are critical to ensuring a return to general prosperity, price stability, and an equitable distribution of our nation’s productive resources among all members of our society. Our nation cannot simply shift the unsustainable excess of credit, borrowing, speculation, and financial leverage that occurred in the private sector (and that triggered this crisis) onto the public debt in order to artificially “stimulate” our economy indefinitely. Before the federal government can convince the American public that it will credibly provide meaningful oversight over the profligate business practices of private financial institutions in order to prevent a similar financial crisis from occurring in the future, our national political leaders must first lead by example by adopting concrete commitments to balance the federal budget within five years, further reduce the outstanding federal deficit, and address the burgeoning unfunded liabilities in our national social insurance safety net.

Action Plan

3. Expand Telecommunications Services in Rural Areas

Universal access to affordable, reliable and competitive telecommunications technologies such as telephone, cellular, wireless, digital broadcast television, radio, Internet, satellite and competitive video services must be available to rural communities at affordable costs. Advanced telecommunications technologies are converging. Therefore, national, state and locals laws that govern these technologies should remove the regulatory uncertainty that has deterred advanced telecommunications investment in rural America. The Internet delivers information, services and products efficiently, irrespective of geographic location. Rural telecommuters enjoy rewarding careers and lifestyles while conserving energy and reducing traffic congestion. Cell phones increase personal security in remote areas and offer cost effective service to low income individuals. Telemedicine and tele-education both bring vital new services to rural communities. Global positioning satellites improve productivity on America’s farms. Even with these benefits, we must protect children from inappropriate materials and we must reduce incidents of spam, fraud and loss of privacy from these technologies. Expanding access to new telecommunications technologies in rural areas will spark the creation of new service providers, new innovations and new applications that will become more affordable to rural communities.

Action Plan

1. Support programs such as the Universal Service Fund to guarantee that every rural community will have affordable local telephone service, cell phone, dial-up Internet and broadband Internet access. Support extending eligibility for providers of “Lifeline” service for low income persons to include cell phone companies.
2. Support legislation to assure that every rural community has access to free, over-the-air broadcast radio and television services, as well as competitive video, fiber optic, fixed wireless or satellite services. Provide educational and financial resources for the transition to digital television.
3. Protect children from inappropriate materials, combat incidents of fraud, reduce spam and increase privacy and security for individuals who use the Internet. Update “Do-Not-Call” registry programs to include computer dialed and live political telemarketing calls.

4. Achieve Energy Security for Rural America

Imported energy and high prices threaten our national security. High energy costs can force farmers to abandon crops in their fields or sell livestock at a loss. Renewable energy from our nation’s farms, better utilization of traditional domestic energy sources, and enhanced energy conservation are the keys to reducing our dependence on imported energy and combating global warming. However, existing national energy policies often contradict this effective three-pronged strategy. Renewable energy from our nation’s farms and rural communities is grossly underutilized and faces government regulatory and monopolistically driven hurdles to further integration into our national energy mix. Volatile energy prices, driven in part, by Wall Street speculators, have crippled our nation’s fertilizer and agricultural chemical production capacity. Proven reserves of domestic energy cannot be developed because of unscientific, ecological prejudices while environmentally marginal policies increase energy costs without benefits. Efforts to promote critical infrastructure improvements that will increase efficiency and reduce energy costs in rural areas, such as streamlined approval for improved road, rail, and water transportation as well as electricity transmission capacity languish. Voluntary and cost effective energy conservation programs critical to rural communities, such as passenger rail service, regional air transportation service, telecommuting, telecommerce, home and farm weatherization, car/van pooling, and affordable inter-community bus service, are under utilized and lack financial support.

Action Plan

1. Promote the goal of generating at least 25% of domestic energy needs from renewable resources derived from America’s family farms, such as biodiesel, ethanol, biomass, solar, and wind energies by January 1, 2025.
2. Develop traditional sources of energy from public and private lands as well as off shore, in an environmentally sound manner.
3. Support legislation to make energy saving infrastructure improvements in rural areas, such as streamlined approval processes and authorization for improved road, rail and water transportation as well as additional electricity transmission capacity.
4. Support efforts to reinstate the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s market oversight authority over energy markets.
5. Support effective energy conservation programs in rural areas such as passenger rail service, regional air transportation service, telecommuting, home and farm weatherization, public transportation, and car/van pools.

5. Improve the Quality and Availability of Rural Health Care

Rural citizens face daunting challenges in order to address their personal responsibilities to acquire adequate health care. To address these challenges, family farmers, ranchers and rural residents need 100% tax deductions for their health insurance and long-term care insurance costs, for medical savings accounts, and for medical flexible spending accounts. They need competitive priced health insurance choices such as nationwide association sponsored health plans and Medicare Advantage plans. Yet, health insurance has no value if there are no health care resources in rural areas. We must preserve access to modern pharmaceutical technologies for all rural families. The Medicare Part D program must provide rural seniors a wide choice of affordable prescription drug benefits that meet their individual needs at prices they can afford. Most U.S. farmers over the age of 65 receive greater direct financial benefits from the Medicare program than from farm programs. Rural health care providers face regulatory barriers when they seek equitable reimbursement for treatments provided under Medicare and Medicaid. Rural health care providers also face a financial burden from medical malpractice litigation. Rural health care providers and patients also need aggressive deployment of advanced telemedicine and digital record keeping in order to provide adequate care to their communities.

Action Plan

1. Provide rural residents the means to address their medical financial responsibilities through 100% income tax deductions for health and long-term care insurance, medical savings accounts, medical flexible spending accounts, nationwide association health plans, and competitive Medicare Advantage plans.
2. Support Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits for rural seniors. Repeal regulatory barriers that rural health care providers face regarding reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid.
3. Support comprehensive, national medical malpractice tort reform.
4. Support access to modern pharmaceutical technologies for all rural families.
5. Aggressively deploy advanced telemedicine and digital record keeping in rural communities to serve the needs of rural patients and rural health care providers.

6. Promote Practical and Effective Immigration Reform

The tide of undocumented and illegal immigration in our nation creates a financial and social burden on our nation to provide these individuals with basic public and governmental services. Undocumented immigration increases the risk of criminal or terrorist activity, presents the danger of a public health crisis, promotes the creation of a permanent underclass, and diminishes our national sovereignty. At the same time, the need for legal guest workers to meet unfulfilled labor needs in agriculture and other parts of our economy is critical. Little constructive progress has been made to secure our nation’s borders or to provide for an orderly flow of legal guest workers. Stop gap measures such as erecting physical barriers along the borders, shifting the enforcement burden to private employers and ignoring the problem through de facto amnesty that requires taxpayers and consumers pick up the bill for this crisis, have clearly failed. The primary responsibility to secure our borders, protect our sovereignty and assure the orderly supply of legal guest workers rests with the government at all levels. Increased efforts to secure our borders; increased cooperation among federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to respond to public safety threats by undocumented aliens; authorization to detain undocumented aliens pending investigation of their status; uniform verification of eligibility for individuals to receive government services; repealing the automatic rights of citizenship to the children of illegal aliens; and comprehensive reform of outdated guest worker programs are all practical, cost effective measures that should be implemented immediately. Requiring private employers to be responsible for enforcement of federal immigration law is vigilantism that places at risk the civil rights of both foreign guest workers and U.S. citizens. Requiring taxpayers to finance government services for undocumented immigrants who flaunt our laws is contrary to the principals of democratic accountability and popular sovereignty.

Action Plan

1. Support increased U.S. control of our nation’s borders to prevent the entry of illegal and undocumented immigrants.
2. Support a prohibition on general amnesty for illegal aliens. Require proof of citizenship and/or legal residence to receive government benefits. Repeal automatic citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants, until their parents become U.S. citizens.
3. Allow law enforcement or immigration officials to detain any undocumented aliens, including individuals with expired visas, to facilitate orderly deportation.
4. Support enactment of practical and enforceable foreign guest worker programs, including expedited processing of foreign workers in the agricultural sector. Support reform of the H2A program to make it beneficial to farmers. Support the expansion of the H1B visa for foreign professionals to enter the United States in order to provide services in rural communities, where there is a documented need.
5. Support legislation to assure that agricultural employers are not responsible for verifying migrant or seasonal worker documentation at the time of employment. Support legislation to assure that employers who unknowingly hire illegal aliens will not be taxed or fined.

7. Support Transportation Improvements that Protect the Freedom of Mobility

Freedom of mobility is vital to rural life. Transportation is the lifeblood of our nation’s economy. Federal transportation investments promote healthy economic growth. However, our highways, railroads, airports, and waterways are deteriorating from failure to support and maintain transportation infrastructure. Since 1970, Americans have increased the miles they drive by more than 148%, while new roads have increased by just 6%. Gridlock costs $67.5 billion a year and wastes 3.6 billion hours. Grain literally rots on the ground waiting to be transported. Private owners of short-line railroads have increasingly proposed to abandon corridors that are vital to farmers transporting their crops to market. Our nation’s commercial waterways are threatened by environmental regulations and deterioration. Our 2,574 local, rural airports are home to 40% of the nation's general aviation fleet. They are the primary source of passenger air transportation for 19% of the U.S. population. They are the fastest transportation option to emergency medical facilities in rural areas.  They are indispensable for our forest fire-fighting capabilities, aerial pesticide applications, rural traffic enforcement, wilderness search and rescue, just-in-time package delivery, and other services critical to maintaining a healthy rural economy.

Action Plan

1. Support comprehensive, multi-year, federal surface transportation legislation that would benefit rural America through highway construction, rural highway and bridge maintenance, highway safety, and mass transportation. Support a Highway Trust Fund funded by dedicated motor fuel taxes. Support keeping Interstate Highways toll free.
2. Encourage railroads, trucking, and barge shipping companies to provide reliable and competitive bulk commodity transportation. Restrict mergers that further concentrate transportation resources. Support efforts to secure public ownership of vital short-line rail transportation corridors and facilities that benefit rural communities when those lines are proposed for abandonment.
3. Support federal expenditures to upgrade and maintain all inland waterways and commercial ports. Resist efforts to shorten transportation seasons on rivers for marginal environmental reasons.
4. Support appropriate national aviation fuel user fees paid by all commercial aviation businesses to assure that the Federal Aviation Administration will continue to be able to oversee commercial passenger, freight air, and general aviation services at the 2,574 rural airports in the U.S.

8. Strengthen Civic Participation in Our Society

The on going challenges of September 11 th 2001, as well as the current national economic crisis continue, to test the durability of our liberties and our duties of civic participation. Common frames of reference, such as language, expressions of faith and patriotism are fundamental prerequisites for individual liberties and vibrant civic participation. These shared references reinforce our national traditions of religious and social tolerance and foster continued dialogue among the various segments of our diverse society. Modern technology also facilitates civic participation through more open elections and direct communication with policy makers. Strengthening civic participation in our society by acknowledging the roles of language, faith, patriotism, and technology is the most effective means to guarantee our liberties, promote peaceful, meaningful dialogue, and maintain our way of life.

Action Plan

Grange members cherish living in rural communities free of crime and fear. Public safety in rural communitiesis a national priority. Bioterrorism that could destroy the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of family farmers and ranchers is a real threat via the importation or domestic transportation of invasive pests and diseases. Consumers are at risk from imported food and manufactured products that often fail to meet the same strict scrutiny that domestically produced products face. Family farmers face blatant threats of fear and intimidation from FBI recognized, violent, domestic, extremist groups, such as the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, who attack private property as the means of imposing their radical agendas on society. Well-funded, ancillary, propaganda networks also support this extremist agenda and commonly blame these attacks entirely on the victims. Traditional crime is also increasingly making its way to our rural communities. Urban gangs recruit members in rural areas. Criminals use rural locations to manufacture and distribute illegal drugs, such as methamphetamine, and leave landowners with toxic waste sites. Laws regarding criminal penalties for the use of firearms during the commission of a crime are not adequately enforced or applied. The basic rights of crime victims in rural areas go unprotected. Rural law enforcement agencies are often unprepared to address these challenges because they lack the latest technologies needed to communicate with each other and other first responders.

Action Plan

1. Support legislation to combat the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine and other illegal drugs in rural areas.
2. Combat bioterrorism by preventing the importation or domestic transportation of invasive pests and diseases. Support legislation to require that all imported food and manufactured products must meet the same standards for consumer health and safety as domestic products.
3. Support efforts to disrupt domestic terrorist activities by extremist environmental or animal rights organizations and their ancillary propaganda networks.
4. Support programs to protect the rights of victims of violent crimes in rural areas.
5. Support the strict enforcement of all existing laws pertaining to the use of firearms during the commission of a crime in lieu of additional restrictions on the right to bear firearms.
6. Support programs to provide every rural law enforcement agency in the U.S. access to advanced telecommunications technologies that interface with other first responders.

10. Improve the Quality of Rural Education

Rural public schools are often the focal point and pride of their local communities. The National Grange supports strengthening public education in rural communities because every child is entitled to receive a high quality public education and every parent must be an indispensable part of the public education decision making process. An Office of Rural Education should be created by statute within the U.S. Department of Education to specifically advocate for the needs of rural school districts. We must improve keystone federal education statutes that directly impact rural public schools such as the No Child Left Behind Act, the Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self Determination Act, and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act in order to return the authority to direct students’ educations to parents, teachers, and local school boards and to assure that all federally mandated education programs, especially programs for special needs students, are appropriately funded by the federal government. We must reward teachers who successfully instruct their students to master the basic skills and knowledge necessary for becoming productive members of their community. We must further empower teachers and local schools officials to quickly confront, and if necessary, appropriately remove, disruptive and/or violent students from the classroom, without fear of professional retribution. However, the use of direct cash payments to students for the purpose of improving attendance, behavior and/or performance must be avoided. Rural public schools can proactively combat childhood obesity by offering only healthy foods and snacks to students, and by having ongoing physical education programs. Home schooling should be a viable alternative to traditional education in rural communities, especially where the distance and cost of transporting a student to and from school can impede a child’s ability to learn. Non-intrusive regulations and cooperative partnerships with local school districts can assure that rural home-schooled students receive a high quality education.

Action Plan