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February 3, 2006
The Honorable George W. Bush
Executive Office of the President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Bush:
The National Grange, the nation’s oldest rural advocacy organization, would like to commend you on the goals you outlined in your 2006 State of the Union Address. Since 1867, the Grange has served as an advocate for family farmers and rural communities. Today, Grange members affiliated with more than 2,800 local, county and state Grange chapters across the nation are leaders in developing and advocating policies that benefit their communities.
Recently we have sent you the “Blueprint for Rural America 2006”, which outlined the National Grange’s legislative priorities in 2006 and we found many issues you laid out in your address are also the issues of concern to Grange members presented in the “Blueprint for Rural America 2006.”
One of the most important portions of your address was your support for alternative energy. As you know, renewable fuels such as corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel derived from varied farm products such as soybeans will bring new revenue to farmers and rural communities. The National Grange supports your effort to develop “cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources” including your “Advanced Energy Initiative” that asks for a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research. We are also inspired by your promise to fund additional research in “cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass.”
Health care is another issue of great importance to our members and other rural Americans. In your Address, you stated, “our government has a responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly…for all Americans, we must confront the rising cost of care, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, and help people afford the insurance coverage they need.” We applaud you on this statement and we appreciate your efforts to initiate a prescription drug benefit that enables low-income seniors to save significantly on the cost of their medications. We are also encouraged by your plan to “strengthen health savings accounts – making sure individuals and small business employees can buy insurance with the same advantages that people working for big businesses now get.” However, we want to emphasize that health insurance and health benefit programs have no value to rural citizens if there are no health care providers in rural areas. We urge you to also include new initiatives as part of your Administrations agenda on health care to remove the existing regulatory barriers that rural health facilities face in regard to equitable reimbursement to encourage them to keep their health services in rural areas.
Since the beginning of your term as President, you have made the security of the American people one of your top priorities. The Grange strongly supports your efforts to increase border security to stem the tide of illegal immigration and at the same time we support the guest worker program that you mentioned that “allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally, and reduces smuggling and crime at the border.” We also urge you to oppose any legislation that would hold agricultural employers responsible for checking the authenticity of documentation provided by migrant and seasonal workers at the time of employment.
Another important issue you touched upon in your Address was your call for continued budget cuts. You said you would reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. The National Grange strongly supports efforts to eliminate deficit spending and reduce our national debt, including the adoption of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget as a permanent solution to our deficit problems. However, as you know agriculture is one of the most hard-pressed sectors in this nation and America’s agriculture economic well-being heavily depends upon government’s farm support programs. The recent passage of budget cutting package with $3 billion cuts for agriculture spending will create additional burdens for family farmers and rural citizens. We urge you not to balance the budget on the backs of America’s working farmers simply because they constitute less than 1% of our nation’s population. Instead we urge you to keep sight of the important contributions that farmers make to our country and the many important farm programs that provide credit, risk management, income support, and environmental stewardship for family farmers.
The National Grange is a strong and consistent voice for rural citizens. We look forward to working with you and your Administration to strengthen rural communities.
Sincerely,
William Steel, President
National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry
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