FLYING –On Tuesday at a soybean and dairy farm in Lawrence County, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, pitched his campaign to rural voters, drawing on his upbringing in rural Nebraska.
“I learned a lot of things on these family farms,” Walz said. He said some of his warmest memories come from life on the farm, including learning to drive at the age of about 10, he joked. Growing up in a rural area meant “being on the land and understanding what that meant.”
Family farms, Walz added, are part of a “proud tradition of feeding and fueling this country. Our rural neighbors are the foundation of America’s success.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, announced: policy plan for rural communities on Tuesday, with a focus on supporting tiny farmers and ranchers.
The initiative calls for hiring 10,000 health care workers in rural areas, expanding telemedicine, maintaining rural hospitals and pharmacies, and reducing the number of “emergency room deserts,” which Walz mentioned in his remarks.
“There are a lot of places in America right now where if you call 911, it’s very difficult to get an ambulance in time,” he said. “Our rescuers are missing. We want to make sure we close this gap and advance telemedicine and access to affordable, high-quality health care for everyone in every part of the country.”
He added that protecting independent pharmacies is crucial to rural health care. “The consolidation of pharmacy benefit managers and the closure of small, independent rural pharmacies has not only put small communities out of work, but has made it more difficult for them to access the medicines they need at affordable prices,” he said.
Walz said Trump has no respect for rural communities. “And I will tell you that they take most of their constituents for granted given the policies that they put forward that do nothing for rural Pennsylvania, rural Minnesota or anywhere in this country.”
Walz said that because of Trump’s policies that favored larger farms over smaller ones, there were “near record highs of farm bankruptcies in the U.S. in 2019.” Data from bankruptcy filings in the USA show that there have been nearly 600 Chapter 12 family farm bankruptcies this year, a 20% raise from the previous year and the highest number since 2011.
“Donald Trump could afford to go bankrupt one, two, three, four, five, six times,” Walz added, “but farmers can do it once, and then the farm is lost to the next generation, and then the community lost another family and indeed businesses they started closing down in the city center.”
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Anna Kelly responded to Walz’s comments about Trump’s record. “Rural Americans have long felt left behind by Kamala Harris’ weak, failed, and dangerously liberal policies that are crippling our economy, imposing red tape on our farmers, and creating uncertainty through measures like burdensome WOTUS rules.” A provision of the Clean Water Act. “Harris may try to rewrite history, but it’s too little, too late – rural voters are tired of the Democrats’ defeat and are lining up to support President Trump.”
Walz said he wouldn’t trade his rural upbringing for anything, which he says contrasts him with Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), as evidenced in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
“Senator Vance has become a media darling. He wrote a book about the place he grew up in, but the problem was that instead of uplifting it, he was destroying the place he grew up in. He’s a venture capitalist and he dresses up as a cowboy or something.
On Tuesday, Walz stopped in rural southwestern Pennsylvania before an evening rally at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh. In recent weeks, he and his running mate, Kamala Harris, have been campaigning in more rural parts of the state to appeal to “persuadable” undecided voters.
Harris campaigns in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre: ‘We listen as much as we speak’
Harris’ campaign plan for rural Americans highlights several initiatives Harris has previously announced that he says will aid rural Americans, including lowering child care costs, providing a down payment of up to $25,000 for first-time homebuyers and increasing tiny tax credit for business start-up expenses up to USD 50,000.
Additionally, the Rural Plan calls for investment in American agriculture in the form of improving access to credit, land, and markets and creating fresh income streams for tiny and medium-sized farmers.
Rick Telesz, owner of the farm where Walz spoke on Tuesday, voted for former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee in 2016, and ran in the 2022 Democratic primary for the 16th Congressional District seat held by Republican Mike’ and Kelly. He gained national attention 2019, when he spoke out about then-President Trump’s tariffs on China and how they hurt American farmers.
Telesz portrayed Walz on Tuesday as someone who understands the needs of Americans living in rural areas and family farms.
“Like my brothers, dad, uncle and me, he grew up working on the family farm and shares his experiences throwing hay bales and driving tractors,” Telesz said. “This guy understands what it means to live in a tiny town. “He understands what it means to sit at the kitchen table and talk about issues that affect our families.”
Kenneth Heitger, 43, of Beaver County came to hear Walz speak Tuesday to learn about his plan for rural voters. He said he supports the Harris-Walz ticket because he thinks it moves the country forward, but he sees Trump as a candidate who is “trying to hold us back and take away from people the things that we have fought for for so long.”
Heitger said he also wants to make sure Walz is someone who can work across the aisle in terms of policy. “I like that they have a plan for everything,” he said of the Harris campaign, “and it’s not just a ‘plan concept.’
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