| January
31, 2003 The
Honorable George W. Bush
Executive Office of the President
1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500 Dear
President Bush: Two
years ago, I had the honor of meeting with you on your ranch at the dawn of your
new Administration to discuss important issues facing U.S. agriculture and rural
America. As I watched you deliver your forceful and eloquent State of the Union
address this year, I was reminded of the many mutual concerns that your Administration
and the National Grange share. I believe it is important that we continue the
valuable dialogue that was started in Crawford, Texas in order to find solutions
to the many problems addressing our nation. As
you well know, the National Grange is the nation's oldest rural public interest
and general agricultural organization. Since 1867, the Grange has provided a legislative
voice for families, farmers and rural communities. Today, over 200,000 Grange
members, affiliated with 3,000 local, county and State Grange chapters across
the nation, are leaders in developing and implementing programs that benefit their
communities.
Grange
members share many of the priorities you outlined in your State of the Union Address.
Tax reform is at the top of the agenda for the National Grange. We support you
call for accelerating income tax reductions that are already scheduled to take
place, creating flatter and fairer income tax brackets. We support your proposals
to eliminate the "marriage penalty" and accelerate the $1000 per child federal
income tax credit. We strongly support your proposal to increase capital expensing
for small businesses and farms from a current maximum of $25,000.00 per year to
$75,000.00. We would like you to consider also making the elimination of the "death"
tax permanent as part of your tax proposal that is sent to the Congress. If the
marriage penalty and the child credit should be eliminated now, then so should
the death tax. The
Grange will work with you to reform our health care system to better serve our
seniors, especially those living in rural America. Rural areas have a greater
proportion of seniors in their populations and greater reliance on Medicare by
those seniors as their primary insurance program than urban and suburban communities.
We agree with you that rural seniors need greater choice among the plans they
are offered. Rural seniors need an affordable prescription drug coverage plan.
As more and more rural health care providers are refusing to accept new Medicare
patients, rural seniors are being left with no effective medical coverage. We
agree with your pledge that "We must work toward a system in which all Americans
have a good insurance policy.choose their own doctors.and seniors and low-income
Americans receive the help they need.We must put doctors, and nurses and the patients
back in charge of American medicine". There will be no greater challenge in fulfilling
these promises than fulfilling them for rural Americans. The National Grange strongly
supports your efforts to secure our nation's energy future and provide future
generations with a healthy environment. We support enactment of your Clean Skies
Initiative as well as your Healthy Forests Initiatives as prudent first steps
in our goal of improving our economy and our environment. Additional steps along
this line should include reform of the Endangered Species Act, reform of regulations
governing the use of wetlands, and proactive measures to protect the rights to
own and use private property that are protected under the US Constitution, state
constitutions and the common law. We
support your call for increased technological innovation to help provide clean
sources of energy in the 21st Century. As your Administration works to develop
clean sources of fuel from hydrogen, I urge you to not neglect development of
the proven clean energy resources that already exist on our nations farms, such
as ethanol, biodiesel, biomass and wind energy. While hydrogen may be the fuel
of the future, clean energy derived from our farms is cost effective, and environmentally
effective energy that we can use today. We also need to utilize domestic reserves
of traditional energy resources, such as the petroleum reserves of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, as a bridge from our current fossil fuel based economy
to a more sustainable energy economy in the 21st Century. The
National Grange strongly endorses your call to build a more compassionate America.
Grange members regularly contribute more than 1.4 million hours every year to
community service projects. I have told numerous audiences around the country
who ask about the origins of the Grange 135 years ago that: "The Grange was a
family organization then and the Grange is a family organization today." Conquering
drug and alcohol addiction and helping children at risk through treatment, counseling
and mentoring will touch millions of lives and improve the quality of life for
all Americans. However, I strongly urge you to expand the mission of the USA Freedom
Corp to provide mentoring and support services for our nation's foster children
as well as the dedicated families that accept these children into their lives.
Children in foster care often come from situations that put them at-risk for falling
into a lifestyle that may include drugs, poverty and violent crime. Foster parents
are licensed professional caregivers and dedicated volunteers who open their hearts
and homes to children in need. There is no greater need in our society for the
support and mentoring you have challenged all Americans to provide to their communities
then among foster children and foster parents. The
Grange applauds your efforts to secure our nation's security through your support
of the legislation that created the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Homeland
security is as much a concern in rural areas as urban and suburban areas. Initiatives
such as Project Bioshield in particular will increase our nation's preparedness
against the use of diseases as weapons. I further urge you to initiate similar
research and emergency response systems to respond to a biological assault on
our nations food and fiber system. America's farmers and America's rural communities
are doubly at risk from biological attacks against people and against crops and
livestock. We must be prepared to address all of these potential threats.
I also have the most profound respect for the responsibility that has been thrust
on you in deciding the proper course of action to address the potential threat
to our nation's security. Grange members across the nation appreciate the patience
your Administration has shown toward allowing the UN inspection process to work
and in giving the Iraqi government time to comply with UN resolutions demanding
that Iraq divest itself of weapons of mass destruction. We do not believe that
the United States should ever rush headlong into armed conflict. However we support
your statement that declared: "Whatever action is required, whenever action is
necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people." The
National Grange has developed a 10-point program,
designed to revitalize rural America and return U.S. agriculture to prosperity,
known as the Blueprint for Rural America 2003.
I believe many of the themes addressed in your State of the Union Address can
also be found in this list of priority issues for the National Grange.
In
closing, I want to express how much the National Grange has enjoyed working with
your Administration on common goals during the past two years. We appreciate your
Administration's strong commitment to addressing the needs of farmers, ranchers
and rural Americans. We look forward to the opportunity to continue this partnership
to meet the many challenges of the future. Sincerely,
Kermit W.
Richardson, Master (President)
National Grange of the Order of Patrons of
Husbandry | 
