Elizabeth Warren 2020

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Pocahontas was kind of a badass.  Not sure why she can’t just own it and move on.  Also, Trump’s record on integrity deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award in fraud. 

[bad_teammate 13224]

7 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Pocahontas was kind of a badass.  Not sure why she can’t just own it and move on.

She's going to remain untested on it, and that's the thing that worries me. The only time she's been challenged on it was The Breakfast Club and it didn't look good.

If someone tried to hit her with in the primary she could work out her talking points and responses. People think a tough primary weakens candidates, and that's bullshit, it sharpens them. 

[Crusher 127]

Trump will destroy her on the Fauxcahantas shit. Lieawatha OMG...

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

And the concern trolling begins

[Biff Tannen 45715]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

And the concern trolling begins

Nah, he's just a regular troll.

[Crusher 127]

Never concerned about Elizabeth for sure. She is a liar.

[Biff Tannen 45715]

A liar?  Well we can't have one of those as president.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Nah, he's just a regular troll.

Was more talking about bad_teammate who can’t get past the breakfast club interview no one gives a shit about.  Concern is noted. 

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

As noted on other threads, I am still a Beto guy. Quite possibly the last one left, like the Japanese soldiers dumped on pacific islands to continue fighting many years after the war was over. BUT, I’m ready to jump all in on warren when the inevitable happens. I made a mistake and wrote her off after the DNA bullshit but have really listened to her in the last month. Her policy knowledge is impressive and is incredibly consistent. You never have to worry about her changing with the political winds. I find her personality more engaging that I orginally thought.

Im ready to throw down the gauntlet with trumptards. Let’s put a high quality liberal out there vs the worst president in history and dare America to vote for trump. If we win, then we get a really solid, trustworthy president with immense policy knowledge. If we lose, then America was fucked anyway. We can’t overcome an electorate that would choose trump over warren.

[suddenly shaggy 929]

Fauxcahontas and Lieawatha are at least puns. They have some insult value, though they aren't particularly clever and the GOP base probably only knows Pocahontas from the Disney movie. They have no clue who Hiawatha was.

Fortunately, Trump is too stupid, lazy and narcissistic to get the insult right and the insult has lost most of its value. Trump fucked up the insult when he called her Pocahontas instead of Fauxcahontas the first time and he is completely incapable of rectifying that mistake. Instead, he has doubled and tripled down on it repeatedly, to the point that he couldn't go back and fix it now, even if he wanted to.

Every time any Trumpkin calls her either Pocahontas, or correctly use the insult Fauxcahontas, it is a blunt reminder that Trump is a narcissistic buffoon, incapable of even the most basic self reflection and is utterly unfit to hold any elected office, let alone the Presidency. The fact that it doesn't remind his supporters of this and cause them to reconsider their support is a massive condemnation of their own intelligence and capability for self-reflection. They are utterly unfit to be citizens and voters of the United States of America that our forefathers envisioned, but unfortunately our forefathers didn't foresee 40% of the population becoming barely functioning morons and we are stuck with the dipshits. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by suddenly shaggy

[horncyclist 1391]

I think her campaign is nearing a critical mass where you will see some rapid growth, shifting of support towards her. Once that happens, and she becomes a legit frontrunner, the attacks and testing will come. Her greatest contrast with Trump is her integrity--politically and morally--and I think that overpowers her few weaknesses. She is a reluctant politician which is incredible in this age of ego.

[Tom 2959]

8 hours ago, Crusher said:

Never concerned about Elizabeth for sure. She is a liar.

 

Never concerned about how you feel about any of the Democratic candidates, since you will ultimately vote for the guy who will lie about anything and everything as small as what he had for breakfast regardless of what happens in the primaries.  GTFO with your concern trolling over Warren's heritage.

[Biff Tannen 45715]

9 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Im ready to throw down the gauntlet with trumptards. Let’s put a high quality liberal out there vs the worst president in history and dare America to vote for trump. If we win, then we get a really solid, trustworthy president with immense policy knowledge. If we lose, then America was fucked anyway. We can’t overcome an electorate that would choose trump over warren.

100%.  This is the biggest election with the most far reaching consequences in American history.  Warren will show us our true colors, one way or the other.

[bad_teammate 13224]

Was more talking about bad_teammate who can’t get past the breakfast club interview no one gives a shit about.  Concern is noted. 

Which part of what I said do you think is wrong?

Do you think I would want Trump to win over Warren?

[BrickHorn 18283]

11 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

I don't know, I think her charisma is underrated.   There's a reason she was a Dr. Phil and Daily Show guest before she was that famous — she can be pretty entertaining in a nerdy way, like Neil Degrasse Tyson.   People forget that about her.    She's the only major candidate who is steadily growing in support as more people see her in action rather than either treading or having big bumps and dips.   And her events are starting to have a lot of excitement, with the selfie lines and everything.

She's not like Obama, who is cool, or Trump, who can charm shitheads.   But she's really gifted at communicating actual policy in an interesting way.  And if she does take the nomination, I don't think that many people will have really seen it coming.   She's always been viewed as a niche liberal who could never actually win nationwide.   I know I never expected her to be this good at campaigning for president. 

Warren is the real deal.  She has tons of charisma and she’s sharp as a tack.  And she has actual idea for fixing problems.  It won’t surprise me one bit if she wins the nomination.

[bad_teammate 13224]

Your lips to God's ears.

[BradInATX 9208]

Was more talking about bad_teammate who can’t get past the breakfast club interview no one gives a shit about.  Concern is noted. 

It's not that anyone gives a shit about it, it's that she still hasn't really come up with the right messaging yet. Hopefully she's focus grouping the hell out of it, because it's going to come up in the general. A lot. And despite the "it doesn't matter" wishful thinking, if she doesn't figure out the right counter punch, she's going to get bruised from it.

 

She has time, and she's sharp. Maybe she can hire McKinsey...

 

[Post Oak 20258]

14 hours ago, Crusher said:

Never concerned about Elizabeth for sure. She is a liar.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Campaign came out with these shirts today referencing her debate speech. 

 

 

[bad_teammate 13224]

Exactly what we need.

If she loses the nomination, we need her to hold whoever wins the presidency accountable to the needs of working Americans. If she wins the nomination, I predict a Rushmore-worthy presidency.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[Biff Tannen 45715]

I would like to see Warren's plan for gun control.  I don't think it is explicitly stated on her website anywhere.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

18 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I would like to see Warren's plan for gun control.  I don't think it is explicitly stated on her website anywhere.

She got the gun question in the first debate.

 

 I happened to find the last part of her answer more along my line of thinking in that gun violence in America needs to be rigorously examined because the problem goes well beyond the guns laws.  

The small treatments like background checks and prohibiting weapons of war are a good start but it will not be enough.  Our gun violence problem will need a more robust approach. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

This write up by Umair Haque of the second debate gave me the feels...

 

(A New Wave is) Putting The Mind, Heart, and Soul Back Into American Politics

The Transformational Leaders We Need Are Emerging. Are We Wise Enough to See It?

https://eand.co/liz-bernie-and-marianne-are-putting-the-mind-heart-and-soul-back-into-american-politics-dedc9efa1d6c

Let me be blunt. Last night’s Democratic debate was abysmal. The questions were predictably juvenile and inane — “But candidate! What about socialism?!”, “What’s your position on nuking half the world, good or very good?” “So, are you a communist?” The moderation was terrible — the women got frozen out of the debate, so that the veritable attack squad of mediocre white men on stage could all mansplain political economy to the whole country…only totally backwards and dead wrong. (I’d say Jake Tapper should be disappointed in himself, but he just had a Nazi on to justify supremacy a week or two ago, so.) 

CNN had clearly set it all up as a kind of guerrilla ambush to machine-gun away any reason and thoughtfulness and enlightenment — bap bap bap — but what do you expect from cable news run by mediocre dudes for maximum profit, truth and decency?

And yet despite all that, the debate was fantastic, too. It was a welcome antidote to the politics of greed, fear, hate, revenge, and violence that have dominated America my whole adult lifetime (and yours, too.) Bernie, Liz, and Marianne — and Beto and Pete, too — lit the stage on fire like it was a rock concert with their passion, insight, and searing truth.

It was Elizabeth Warren’s — what? Not quite her moment, yet. But another moment when she rose head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. But let me begin with a few other observations.

There was the much maligned Marianne Williamson. When I see Americans mocking her — I shake my head. They’re buying into the shame, fear, and violence of the right — and they don’t even know it. They’re like little bullies, following the big one, hoping they reward him with a ruffle of the hair. Americans have been conditioned to respond with emotional violence — bullying, name-calling, insults, mockery, taunts — without thinking. They do it reflexively. Especially when someone confronts them with…feelings.

Yet that’s what Marianne did. It was a necessary intervention, too. Because American politics has for far too long been a soulless thing. Hey guys — how do we feel about literally making war on more than half the world? How do we feel about bombing innocent families with our gleaming killing machine made of drones and code and missiles? How do we feel about being made to constantly abuse and harm and hurt each other — and calling it “freedom”? *Blank stare* What? Feel? What are you talking about?!

So nobody asks. The Jakes and Ezras and Chrises have built their little empires on wonkery — not feelings. It’s made them fortunes. But where has it gotten us, my friends?

The grinning, drunk frat-boys that’ve run America for centuries certainly don’t want the question of feelings asked — it’s a literal patriarchal tribe of brothers, and in patriarchy, nobody’s allowed to feel anything but rage, hate, and more burning rage. So all our true feelings have been buried. All the guilt and fear and remorse deep down in the American soul. It’s there. The world can’t quite see it — but it’s very much there. It’s why as a nation we’re so depressed, anxious, weary, traumatized. We’re in an abusive relationship as a society. And so the question of feelings is a direct and radical challenge to patriarchy’s and supremacy’s disvalues of cruelty, domination, and violence, which have come to corrode us.

We let our politics become a soulless thing. That’s just what patriarchy wanted — because the violence it does depends on us burying our better selves as dead as living corpses, so that our guilt and shame and remorse don’t move us to object, protest, stop it. The bad guys won because American politics has no soul — and that someone’s finally putting a little bit back is an eminently good thing. So don’t join the crowd of mindless pundits making fun of her. It’s dumb. It’s exactly the kind of mindless bullying and infantile narcissism that the rest of the world rolls its eyes at Americans for.

(Please understand. I’m not saying she should be President — although would she really be worse than our last, what, ten? I’m saying she offers a necessary perspective that’s been missing way, way too long — one of emotion, of inner truth, of conscience, instead of just shooting first, and asking questions later.)

If Marianne put the soul back into American politics just a little, then it was Elizabeth, with help from Bernie, who put the heart and mind back into it.

She had it tough last night. Jake deliberately minimized her, denied her. He cut her off and gave her as few opportunities to speak as he could. It’s pretty obvious he sees her as a “radical leftist” —and a woman, to boot, scandalous! — just like a good obedient CNN pundit white dude would. She’s the second lowest of all on his internal mental ladder of social statuses (just above a black woman leftist.) But Liz isn’t a radical leftist. What she is is a transformative leader of the highest calibre. She is the President America needs, my friends.

I’m going to put it as bluntly as I can. America is very, very lucky to have someone of Liz’s calibre on that stage (I call her Liz for brevity’s sake — I don’t know her, and I’ve never met her, so pardon the informality.) She is the kind of leader who I’m astonished American has still managed to produce. I say that because she is literally the only person in my lifetime that I’ve seen in the American elite — and I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with the American elite, so I can tell you that yes, they’re really every bit as arrogant, mindless, hopeless, insular, and deluded as they seem — who genuinely understands America’s problems, and how to fix them. I’m amazed that America managed to make someone like that — because it’s failing at everything else.

She gets the causality of American collapse with perfect insight. Yes, really. An imploding economy produced an imploding middle class that turned to demagoguery — as it reverted to older forms of order that offered them more security and stability. In America’s case, of course, that was a kind of “white nationalism” that the rest of the world sees as fascism. She gets that all this was produced by a kind of massive, chronic underinvestment in public goods — no working healthcare, retirement, transport, educational systems. Hence, plan after plan to revive just such things.

It’s brilliant. It’s transformational. In plain English, I’ll share a secret with you that the CNN pundits and MSNBC talking heads will never say — because it’s one made of words that are taboo to them. Liz wants to make America a social democracy, in the European or Canadian molds. Nobody can say those words, because they’re “socialism” — but that is the fact.

It’s radical, that’s true — but it is precisely what America needs. As I often say — the choice this century, in a time of scarce resources that need to be used much, much more wisely, instead of merely hoarded at the top, is between social democracy, and fascism. So far, America’s making the…wrong one. So Liz gets it absolute right. So right I’m astonished that an American — any American — can get it that right. Even Europeans aren’t getting it that right, my my friends. American politics has a heart and mind again — thanks to Liz.

So what about Bernie? Don’t get me wrong. I like Bernie. He’s fantastic. But let me spell out a few differences between him and Liz that are critical to me at least.

Bernie is an ideological, old school socialist. That’s not an insult. That’s a compliment. It takes real stones, real commitment — and fierce intelligence — to be that in a country where everything is premised on the same old tired, foolish myths of capitalism, greed, and materialism. Still, that’s a very different thing from Liz. You see, Liz used to be a die hard centrist conservative — just what you might expect from a WASPy New Englander who was a Harvard prof. So how on earth did she become this fiercely transformational, well, psssst…social democrat?

Because she used her brain, my friends. When the facts changed, she changed her mind. She saw America collapsing — and she realized that all our theories and ideas and models were dead wrong. Now, that’s very different from Bernie. It’s not ideological commitment. It’s flexibility, it’s insight, it’s the power of a mind changing. I value that — and maybe you should too. Because one of the biggest problems in our country is that nobody ever changes their damned minds — not even when everything’s crumbling in around them. See Marco Rubio supporting putting little brown kids in…concentration camps? What the?

That says something vital to me about Liz. It tells a story of genuine humility, courage, and passion, concern — on a level that our leaders just haven’t had for decades, now. What do you think it takes to change like that? Do you know what it does to the career of a member of the American elite to go against the consensus of all its economists, political scientists, and pundits? It has huge, huge costs, my friends. So it takes real humility, real courage, real passion of a level that shouldn’t go unnoticed. I’m not saying Bernie doesn’t have it. I’m just saying I think Liz has it more.

That brings me to another difference. Bernie’s focus is the working class. Liz’s is the middle class. Is that just a semantic difference? Not really. I think they belie very different mental models of how a country should work. Bernie, the old school ideological socialist, wants a thriving working class — people who work for a living, and earn a fair income, have strong social protections, and so forth. Fair enough. But Liz, the modern social democrat, wants a different thing — a middle class. That is, upward mobility, your kids doing better than you, civic participation, happiness, meaning, purpose, cohesion, those staid — but super valuable middle class values of the American Dream. These are very different visions. One is much, much narrower than the other. Bernie’s working class is a static thing, a Marxist class structure, in perpetual conflict with everyone else. Liz’s middle class is the stuff that democracy depends on — a social class that’s tolerant, just, kind, graceful, that thinks and acts for the long term, for the public good, that’s maturing and developing as people, as human beings.

Bernie’s paradigmatic vision is neo-Marxist, still — which, again, is fine, American politics needs that choice, that perspective, badly — and Liz’s is eudaimonic, concerned with human flourishing and possibility. These are vital differences — and they’ll become much more apparent as the race goes on.

The debate was abysmal. And yet something interesting, profound, and a little bit beautiful began to happen — despite the brain-dead questions, the misogynistic moderation, the army of mediocre white dudes on stage just uttering rank disinformation and reciting old, stale myths. American politics began to recover its heart, mind, and soul.

Its heart began to beat again. Its mind began to think again. And its soul began to feel again.

We have two women and one man to thank for that. A mystical hippie, an unlikely social democrat, and a gruff old socialist. Let us thank them all — instead of joining in the chorus of derision. For me, Liz would make the best American president in decades — probably ever. She’d be exactly the kind of transformational, tough, wise, and gentle leader that this moment in history demands. I’m astonished, like I said, that there is anybody like that at all left in America, let alone the American elite. The question, though, is whether that’s becoming clear to you, too, yet.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[bad_teammate 13224]

lol @ the idea that being a "centrist conservative" from the 70s to the 90s was just the common sense result of basic factual analysis

Centrists act like Bernie just flipped a coin when he was a kid and it landed on "socialist" so he's just been doing that for some random cause. No, he saw injustice in his youth, correctly identified the problem, and spent decades fighting against that problem.

Liz either didn't see the injustice or misidentified the problem until her 50s. It's great to have her in the fight, but the idea that she was dead wrong for most of her life is not a point she has OVER the guy who has been right the whole time.

The shitlib obsession with making sure their candidate has a Hero's Journey is pathetic.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Lol you couldn’t resist to come in to defend your dear Bernard.  Just imagine how strong Liz would be today if she had the ideological purity of Bernie her entire life.  She’d probably be finishing her second term by now.  

It’s almost an indictment of Bernie’s ineffectiveness as a political thought leader.  You don’t get to be president simply because you were right the longest.  You need the whole package and make the most of the structures you have to work with. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Biff Tannen 45715]

7 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Lol you couldn’t resist to come in to defend you dear Bernard.  Just imagine how strong Liz would be today if she had the ideological purity of Bernie her entire life.  She’d probably be finishing her second term by now.  

It’s almost an indictment of Bernie’s ineffectiveness as a political thought leader.  You don’t get to be president simply because you were right the longest.  You need the whole package and make the most of the structures you have to work with. 

I was going to say something similar. Bernie is better because he was right longer?  I think Liz has similar ideas and can put them across better and appeal to more voters overall. 

[bad_teammate 13224]

10 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

It’s almost an indictment of Bernie’s ineffectiveness as a political thought leader.

Saying that Bernie is an ineffective thought leader is laughable, even for you.

Bernie is the focus of conversation on debate stages he's not even part of. The entire field is calibrated by their relationship to Bernie. It ALL revolves around him. He is the intellectual and policy leader of the Democratic Party. When Liz was asked about her healthcare plan she said, "I'm with Bernie on this"... Bernie wasn't even on the stage.

1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

Bernie is better because he was right longer?

Well yes, obviously.

If Person S recognized a problem and its solution much faster than Person W, then that tells us that Person S will be better at identifying and developing solutions to future problems.

Liz is very good. She has a lot of great ideas that are very important and necessary. The author's argument (the one that Hugo posted) is idiotic, however, in saying that it's better to be wrong and then learn from that than it is to just be right from the jump.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

35 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

lol @ the idea that being a "centrist conservative" from the 70s to the 90s was just the common sense result of basic factual analysis

Centrists act like Bernie just flipped a coin when he was a kid and it landed on "socialist" so he's just been doing that for some random cause. No, he saw injustice in his youth, correctly identified the problem, and spent decades fighting against that problem.

Liz either didn't see the injustice or misidentified the problem until her 50s. It's great to have her in the fight, but the idea that she was dead wrong for most of her life is not a point she has OVER the guy who has been right the whole time.

The shitlib obsession with making sure their candidate has a Hero's Journey is pathetic.

You sure post a lot of "just sayin'" posts against Warren for someone who claims to think she's awesome. 

[bad_teammate 13224]

Just now, Mojo Hand said:

You sure post a lot of "just sayin'" posts against Warren for someone who claims to think she's awesome. 

My evaluations of candidates come from a set of beliefs and values that I have, meaning candidates can both fail to live up to what I want AND still be good overall and better than other candidates.

Many of you, however, do this like a team sport. You choose your favorite and backfill reasons to support that person to justify the fandom.

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Mojo Hand 4580]

15 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

My evaluations of candidates come from a set of beliefs and values that I have, meaning candidates can both fail to live up to what I want AND still be good overall and better than other candidates.

Many of you, however, do this like a team sport. You choose your favorite and backfill reasons to support that person to justify the fandom.

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Could be.  But we don't know you. Online, we can only be judged by our posts. 

[bad_teammate 13224]

2 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Could be.  But we don't know you. Online, we can only be judged by our posts. 

Cool, go to Page 1 and check out my posts!

[Mojo Hand 4580]

2 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Cool, go to Page 1 and check out my posts!

Warren wasn't quite the threat to Bernie on page 1 that she is now, was she. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Can we please leave Bernie out of this thread. 

The threadjacking is tiresome 

[bad_teammate 13224]

4 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Can we please leave Bernie out of this thread. 

The threadjacking is tiresome 

You're the one who linked the article. lol

8 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Warren wasn't quite the threat to Bernie on page 1 that she is now, was she. 

Not everyone has the same team-sports drive in these conversations. Don't attribute your motivations to me.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

1 minute ago, bad_teammate said:

You're the one who linked the article. lol

And we’ve discussed it.  Yet here we are. 

[Tom 2959]

I'm constantly torn between how much I like Bernie and how hard Bad Teammate makes it to like Bernie.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[burntorangebongos 10752]

Elizabeth Warren stuck the landing on that one. She is the shit.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[DigglerontheHoof 21219]

On 8/2/2019 at 8:49 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

A thing I like about Warren is she can educate without coming off too preachy or condescending.  Unlike other candidates, she doesn’t insult my intelligence.  

This is an excellent point.  She's definitely the smartest person in the race and I'm really close to being "all in" on Liz.   

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[NWBuck 8584]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Owen's last name? Seven. 

#MichiganJoke #TheGame 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

My Plan to Invest in Rural America

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-to-invest-in-rural-america-94e3a80d88aa

This is a big plan including a public option for high speed Internet in rural areas. 

A strong America requires a strong rural America. Rural communities are home to 60 million people, hundreds of tribal nations, and a growing number of new immigrants who account for 37% of rural population growth. These communities feed our nation. And they are leading the country in sustainable energy, generating 99% of America’s wind energy andpioneering efforts to harness solar energy.

But both corporate America and leaders in Washington have turned their backs on the people living in our rural communities and prioritized the interests of giant companies and Wall Street instead. Burdened by student debt,young people are leaving rural communities to find jobs elsewhere. Big broadband companies exclude entire communities — especially tribal communities and rural communities of color — from access to high-speed Internet. Rural communities are losing access to quality health care. Climate change — from more severe floods to extreme heat — is changing the rural way of life. And farmers are forced to compete with giant agribusinesses on an uneven playing field.

Our failure to invest in rural areas is holding back millions of families, weakening our economy, and undermining our efforts to combat climate change. It’s time to fix this.

Protecting Access to Health Care in Rural Communities

Health care is a human right. But people can’t fully exercise that right in communities lacking access to basic services like primary, emergency, and maternity care. That is what’s happening across rural America, where the prevalence of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes is higher, as is the risk of dying from the leading causes of death in the country compared to urban areas. Barriers to coverage, disappearing health facilities, and a shortage of health professionals are denying rural communities the high-quality health care they deserve.

Insurance coverage continues to remain out of reach for many people living in rural communities — and even for those with coverage, rural America is quickly becoming a medical desert. In less than a decade, 112 rural hospitals have closed, with hundreds more teetering on the edge. Those that do remain open operate on razor-thin margins from uncompensated care, lower patient volume, and insufficient reimbursement.

That’s why I support Medicare for All, so that every person will have access to affordable care no matter where they live. That means access to primary care and lower health care costs for patients — and less uncompensated care for hospitals, helping hospitals stay afloat. We also need to increase reimbursement rates for rural hospitals and alleviate unnecessary restrictions that make it difficult for them to serve their communities. Medicare already has special designations available to rural hospitals, but they must be updated to match the reality of rural areas. I will create a new designation that reimburses rural hospitals at a higher rate, relieves distance requirements, and offers flexibility of services by assessing the needs of their communities.

But we can’t stop there. Higher rates of consolidation for both for-profit and non-profithospitals are making it harder to access care. And yet, many hospitals can evade federal antitrust enforcement either because the value of the merger is too small to trigger mandatory review or because the Federal Trade Commission’s purview over non-profit hospitals is constrained. Vertical integration is also increasing as more hospitals acquire physician practices, and some states have deliberately sheltered hospitals from federal antitrust action. I will boost the federal government’s oversight of mergers and anti-competitive behavior to make sure that health care companies play by the rules and put the needs of patients first.

As President, I will direct the FTC to block all future mergers between hospitals unless the merging companies can show that the newly-merged entity will maintain or improve access to care. If a proposed merger helps maintain or improve access to health care, that’s fine. But when it is a first step to closing hospitals or slashing basic services, then a Warren administration will block it.

I’ll also put forward a set of reforms to strengthen FTC oversight over health care organizations, including establishing new federal regulations and guidance to require that all mergers involving health care centers be reported to the FTC. I’ll authorize the FTC to conduct reviews of non-profit hospitals for anti-competitive behavior, update Department of Justice guidance on vertical mergers, and crack down on vertically integrated health care companies that are raising costs without improving the quality of care. And I’ll work with states to repeal Certificate of Public Advantage, or COPA, statutes that shield health care organizations from federal antitrust review and can lead to the creation of large monopolies with little to no oversight.

We also have a responsibility to make sure that places that have experienced a loss in services or are otherwise medically underserved can better meet the needs of their communities. That’s why I will increase funding for Community Health Centers by 15 percent per year over the next five years. I will also establish a $25 billion dollar capital fund to support a menu of options for improving access to care in health professional shortage areas, including: constructing a new facility like a Community Health Center, Rural Health Clinic, School-Based Health Center, or birthing center; expanding capacity or services at an existing clinic; establishing pharmacy services or a telemedicine program; supporting a diabetes self-management education program; improving transportation to the nearest hospital; or piloting models like mobile clinics and community paramedicine programs.

Rural communities have been particularly impacted by the opioid epidemic, with the rate of opioid overdose deaths having been higher there than in urban areas in recent years. I’m pushing for $100 billion over 10 years to end the opioid crisis, including $2.7 billion for the hardest-hit counties and cities and $800 million in direct funding for tribal governments and organizations. Funding can be used for prevention and early intervention services at federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics and to train health professionals on treating substance use disorders in rural and other medically underserved areas.

To ensure access to quality health services, we must also close the health care workforce gaps across rural America. Nearly 60% of Health Professional Shortage Areas — those lacking sufficient primary care physicians, physician assistants, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, EMTs, and home health aides — are in rural regions. More than 3,600 additional doctors are needed to close the rural physician workforce deficit today, but Congressionally-imposed caps on medical residencies and unstable funding of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) have made this gap nearly impossible to close. What’s more, this shortage is rapidly increasing as rural physicians near retirement and fewerincoming medical students plan to practice in rural areas.

As President, I will make sure we expand our health care workforce by investing more resources in building the pipeline of medical professionals in rural areas. This starts by dramatically scaling up apprenticeship programs as proposed in my Economic Patriotism plan to support partnerships between unions, high schools, community colleges, and a wide array of health care professionals to build a health care workforce that is rooted in the community. I’ll lift the cap on residency placements by 15,000 — and because residents are more likely to practice where they train, I’ll target half of new placements in medically-underserved areas such as rural residency programs, residency programs with Rural Training Track programs, and the Indian Health Service (IHS), while working with rural programs to ensure that they can take full advantage of these increases. I’ll also significantly expand the NHSC loan repayment program to $15 billion and the IHS loan repayment program to $1 billion over the next 10 years to cover full loan repayment for 5 years of service and to increase the number of health professionals serving rural and Native American communities.

Building Economic Security in Rural America

My plan doesn’t stop at health care. Every American is entitled to some basic financial security, no matter where they live. But people living in rural communities face challenges that can threaten that security. My plans are designed to address these challenges and allow people in rural communities to thrive economically.

Take child care. Today, a majority of rural communities lack sufficient access to child care. On average, rural families spend more of their incomes on child care than families in urban areas. My plan for Universal Child Care will provide access to high-quality child care in every community that is free for millions and affordable for everyone. The federal government will also work closely with local providers and tribal governments to make sure there are high-quality child care options available in every community — including home-based child care services, which rural families are more likely to use.

Rural communities also face unique housing challenges. More than 150 rural counties have a severe-need for affordable rental housing and 38% of rural counties have moderately-severe rental housing needs. Home values in rural areas have also been slower to recover from the financial crisis. My housing plan invests $523 million to create 380,000 affordable rental homes in rural communities and provides an additional $2 billion to help homeowners with underwater mortgages still struggling to recover from the financial crisis. It also invests $2.5 billion to build or rehabilitate 200,000 homes on tribal lands, where overcrowding, homelessness, and substandard housing have reached crisis levels.

And the student debt crisis hits rural areas particularly hard. In part because of huge student debt burdens, young adults are leaving rural communities for jobs in cities. Just 52% of rural student loan borrowers remain in a rural area, compared to 66% of those who did not take out loans — and those with more debt are more likely to leave. My plan to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt will mean that recent graduates won’t need to flock to urban centers to find jobs that will help them pay down these loans. And my plan to provide universal free technical, two-year, and four-year public college will make sure that no student is ever put in this situation again. We need to make it possible for students to see rural communities as places of opportunity where they can live, work, and build a future for themselves.

A Public Option for Broadband

One of the best tools for unlocking economic opportunity and advances in health care, like telemedicine, is access to reliable, high-speed Internet. In the twenty-first century, every home should have access to this technology — but we’re not even close to that today. According to the FCC, in 2017 26.4% of people living in rural areas and 32.1% of people living on tribal lands did not have access to minimum speed broadband (25 Mbps/ 3 Mbps), compared to 1.7% in urban areas. And given the notorious loopholes in FCC reporting requirements, these figures underestimate the gap.

At the same time, while urban areas may be more likely to have access to fiber broadband, many residents can’t afford to connect to it. Nearly 27% of households in Detroit and Cleveland had no Internet access in 2017, and households with incomes below $35,000 comprise 60% of households without broadband access, despite making up just 31% of the national population.

We’ve faced this kind of problem before. Prior to the late 1930s, private electric companies passed over rural communities they felt offered minimal profit opportunities, leaving the families living there literally in the dark. Just like the electric companies eighty years ago, today’s biggest internet service providers (ISPs) have left large parts of the country unserved or dramatically underserved.

Not only that, they have deliberately restricted competition, kept prices high, and used their armies of lobbyists to convince state legislatures to ban municipalities from building their own public networks. Meanwhile, the federal government has shoveled billions of taxpayer dollars to private ISPs in an effort to expand broadband to remote areas, but those providers have done the bare minimum with these resources — offering internet speeds well below the FCC minimum.

This ends when I’m President. I will make sure every home in America has a fiber broadband connection at a price families can afford. That means publicly-owned and operated networks — and no giant ISPs running away with taxpayer dollars. My plan will:

• Make it clear in federal statute that municipalities have the right to build their own broadband networks. Many small towns and rural areas have turned to municipal networks to provide broadband access in places that the private market has failed to serve — but today, as many as 26 states have passed laws hindering or banning municipalities from building their own broadband infrastructure to protect the interests of giant telecom companies. We will preempt these laws and return this power to local governments.
• Create an Office of Broadband Access in my Department of Economic Development that will manage a new $85 billion federal grant program to massively expand broadband access across the country. Under my plan, only electricity and telephone cooperatives, non-profit organizations, tribes, cities, counties, and other state subdivisions will be eligible for grants from this fund — and all grants will be used to build the fiber infrastructure necessary to bring high-speed broadband to unserved areas, underserved areas, or areas with minimal competition. The federal government will pay 90 cents on the dollar for construction under these grants. In exchange, applicants will be required to offer high-speed public broadband directly to every home in their application area. Applicants will have to offer at least one plan with 100 Mbps/ 100 Mbps speeds and one discount internet plan for low-income customers with a prepaid feature or a low monthly rate. Of these funds, $5 billion will be set aside specifically for 100% federal grants to tribal nations to expand broadband access on Native American lands. In addition to necessary “last mile” infrastructure, tribes will be able to apply for funds to build the missing 8,000 milesof middle mile fiber on tribal lands.
• Appoint FCC Commissioners who will restore net neutrality. I will appoint FCC Commissioners who will restore net neutrality, regulating internet service providers as “common carriers” and maintaining open access to the Internet. And I will require all telecommunications services to contribute fairly into the Universal Service Fund to shore up essential universal service programs that provide subsidies to low-income individuals, schools, and libraries to increase broadband adoption, including signing into law and building on the Tribal Connect Act, so that we can work toward every tribal library having broadband access.
• Bolster the FCC’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy. This office holds trainings, technical assistance, and consultations for Indian Country. Providing it with dedicated, increased funding to expand its capacity will help close the digital divide.
• Improve the accuracy of broadband maps. Weak FCC oversight has allowed ISPs to greatly exaggerate how many households they serve and has given ISPs added fuel to downplay their failures and protect themselves from regulation. To provide universal broadband access and crack down on anti-competitive behaviors, the government has to know how extensive the problems are. I will appoint FCC Commissioners who will require ISPs to report service and speeds down to the household level, as well as aggregate pricing data, and work with community stakeholders — including tribal nations — to make sure we get this process right. Then, we will make these data available to the public and conduct regular audits to ensure accurate reporting.
• Prohibit the range of sneaky maneuvers giant private providers use to unfairly squeeze out competition, hold governments hostage, and drive up prices. It’s time to crack down on all the anti-competitive behaviors that giant ISPs have used to steamroll the competition. We will return control of utility poles and conduits to cities, prohibit landlords from making side deals with private ISPs to limit choices in their properties, and ban companies from limiting access to wires inside buildings. We will make sure that all new buildings are fiber-ready so that any network can deliver service there, and we will also enact “Dig Once” policies to require that conduit is laid anytime the ground is opened for a public infrastructure project.
• Ensure every person has the skills to fully participate in our online economy. Even when there’s access to broadband internet — and even when it’s available at an affordable price — people may still not take advantage of it because they don’t know how to use it. That’s why I will work to pass the Digital Equity Act, which invests $2.5 billion over ten years to help states develop digital equity plans and launch digital inclusion projects.

Creating and Defending Jobs in Rural America

Expanding broadband is just the first step to boosting economic opportunity in rural communities. We need to do more to bring high-quality jobs back to rural areas and small towns and negotiate trade agreements that keep jobs in the U.S. — and don’t ship them overseas. That’s why I’ve committed to creating a National Jobs Strategy focused specifically on regional economies and trends that disproportionately affect rural areas and small cities. And why I will spend $2 trillion in green research, manufacturing, and exporting to create more than a million new jobs, reversing the manufacturing losses that many rural communities have experienced over the last two decades.

I’ve also called for a $400 billion commitment in clean energy research and development — funding that will go to land grant universities, rural areas, and areas that have seen the worst job losses in recent years. I’ll dramatically scale up worker training programs, spending $20 billion on apprenticeships and instituting new sectoral training programs to boost job opportunities for people across Rural America.

Immigration is also revitalizing local economies and reversing population decline in a number of rural communities. I’ve called for expanding legal immigration — done the right way and consistent with our principles — to grow our economy, reunite families, and meet our labor market demands. My immigration plan will raise wages for everyone and make sure that businesses won’t be able to get away with dirty tricks that undercut pay.

And I will build a new approach to our trade policy to make sure that the new, high-quality jobs we create stay right here in America. As part of my new plan, I’ll fundamentally change our negotiation process so that rural communities are explicitly represented at the table, and use our leverage to demand more for workers and farmers by raising standards worldwide.

Bolstering Small and Local Business

Small businesses are critical to the economic vitality of rural communities, but people in rural communities face challenges accessing capital and financial services to start, grow, and operate their businesses. The number of rural counties without a locally owned community bank has doubled since 1994, and 86 new rural banking deserts have appeared since 2008, leaving these communities with no banking services within 10 miles. That’s why I’ve proposed allowing the U.S. Postal Service to partner with local community banks and credit unions to provide access to low-cost, basic banking services online and at post offices.

What’s more, 25% of new rural banking deserts have been in communities of color. Credit and small loans are critical to starting and growing a small business, but longer distances between a borrower and their bank are associated with more credit denials and higher interest rates on loans. That’s why I will establish a $7 billion fund to close the gap in startup capital for entrepreneurs of color, which will support 100,000 new minority-owned businesses, provide over a million new jobs, and further boost economic development in rural areas.

Private equity firms have further harmed local businesses, buying up everything from mobile home parks to hospitals to nursing homes to local newspapers, loading them up with debt, sucking them dry, and leaving workers to pick up the pieces. I’ll rein in Wall Street to hold private equity firms accountable and keep them from destroying businesses that bring economic opportunity — and jobs — to small towns and rural communities across the country. It’s time to prioritize the long-term interests of American workers, not the short-term interests of big financial institutions.

Building a New Farm Economy

Rural America is also the home of our nation’s agriculture sector, but today, farmers are getting squeezed by giant agribusinesses that are gobbling up more land and driving down prices. In 1935, there were 6.8 million farms in the United States — but in 2017, there were just above 2 million. What’s more, as the number of farms has decreased, the size of each remaining farm has dramatically grown — from an average of 155 acres per farm in 1935 to an average of 444 acres per farm today. Meanwhile, the farmer’s share of the food dollar has plummeted to just 14.6 cents in 2017 — the lowest number since the USDA began reporting this figure in 1993.

That’s why I’ve pledged to address consolidation in the agriculture sector by reviewing — and reversing — anti-competitive mergers and breaking up big agribusinesses that have become vertically integrated. I’ll also support a national right to repair law for farmers, reform country-of-origin labeling, and restrict foreign ownership of American agriculture companies and farmland.

And I’ll take it one step further — charting a new farm economy that replaces our government’s failed approach with one that guarantees farmers a fair price and protects our environment.

The cost of each and every one of these investments is fully offset by my plans to make the ultra-wealthy and large corporations pay more in taxes. Those plans include my annual two-cent wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million and my plan to ensure that very large and profitable American corporations can’t get away with paying zero taxes. And the new investments I’m announcing today for universal broadband access and health care options in rural areas can be offset by changing the tax laws that encourage companies to merge and reduce competition.

I want Washington to work for communities all over this country. From expanding access to broadband to boosting investment in quality jobs, together we can make big, structural change to create new opportunities all across rural America.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

A New Farm Economy

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/a-new-farm-economy-8db50fac0551

Consolidation in the agriculture sector is leaving America’s family farmers with lowerprices and fewer choices. Giant corporations use their market share to squeeze farmers from both sides. Farmers are pressured into taking on huge debts to pay the high prices that a small number of large suppliers charge them for inputs like seeds and fertilizer. Then, farmers are at the whim of a market that is controlled by meatpackers and grain traders that can pay them low prices for the commodities they produce — prices that often don’t cover all the money farmers had to spend in the first place.

All of this causes tremendous overproduction of commodities. In the face of lower and lower prices in the market, farmers are left to produce more to try and break even. But this just causes prices to go down even further, benefiting the huge corporations looking to buy goods on the cheap and leaving farmers dependent on the government to backfill their costs.

As a consequence, the agriculture sector has become one of the largest polluters in our economy. As farmers are pressured to plant fence row to fence row and use more fertilizer in search of a higher yield, rural communities lose their soil and water and the environment suffers.

Much of this situation is the direct result of government policy. Our current system of subsidies is supposed to make up the difference between the low prices farmers get on the market and what they have to pay to grow food. But instead it lets big corporations at the top of the supply chain get away with paying artificially low costs while farmers struggle and taxpayers make up the difference. It encourages overproduction by guaranteeing revenue regardless of prices or environmental conditions. And it feeds climate change.

Farmers are stewards of the land, and they know this system of overproduction is unsustainable — but without a change in incentives, they have no other choice.

To fix this problem, we need big, structural change. That’s why I’m calling for a complete overhaul of our failed approach to the farm economy. Instead of subsidizing industrial agriculture and starving farmers and rural communities, my new approach will guarantee farmers a fair price, reduce overproduction, and pay farmers for environmental conservation.

By making this shift, we can raise farm incomes and reduce taxpayer expenditures. We can break the stranglehold that giant agribusinesses have over our farm economy, and expand economic opportunities for small- and medium-sized farmers, family farmers, women farmers, and farmers of color. We can also provide consumers with affordable, high-quality, and often local food, while protecting our land and water and combating the existential threat of climate change.

Replacing our government’s failed approach to the farm economy

Our agriculture markets are badly broken. American farmers spend their days toiling over their crops, but at sale time, more than halfreport negative income from their farming activity. In 2018, the median income farmers made from farming activity before federal subsidies was negative $1,316. Why? Because the market is paying farmers far less than what it costs them to produce their goods.

And it gets worse. Farm subsidies that are necessary to keep farms afloat in this market function as an incentive to overproduce by guaranteeing payments only for certain commodities and encouraging farming on marginal land. This squeezes small farmers, undermines sustainable farming for the long-term, and damages our environment.

It hasn’t always been this way. During the New Deal, FDR’s administration recognized the critical role farmers would play in getting our country out of the Great Depression. His administration set up a system that guaranteed farmers fair prices, tackled overproduction, and reversed environmental degradation. And it worked: for decades, this system gave farmers the security they needed to thrive, kept consumer prices stable, and helped restore our country’s farmland.

But starting in the 1970s, giant agribusinessesconvinced the Nixon Administration to change the system. Corporations called it “deregulating” the farm economy, but of course, this didn’t actually mean reducing government intervention. It just meant shifting that intervention from advancing the interests of farmers, consumers, and the environment to protecting the bottom line of giant agriculture corporations.

Now, the Department of Agriculture budgets over $10 billion each year on post-sale subsidies that are supposed to make up for the low prices that big corporations and livestock giants pay farmers on the market. Meanwhile, Big Ag pockets the profit: one study shows industrial livestock giants, for example, have saved $35 billion over twenty years from buying feed below the cost of production.

We need a new approach that uses taxpayer money more wisely, provides stable access to food, and accounts for the complexities of the agriculture markets. Just like workers need a living wage, farmers need a fair price — one that covers the costs they have to pay to produce their goods. We need to replace our failed system with a tried-and-true method that guarantees farmers that fair price and ends overproduction. Building on the successful model of the New Deal, my plan calls for a new supply management program — which studies show would be billions cheaper for taxpayers than our current subsidy program, yet provide farm incomes that are higher.

Here’s how it will work. First, we guarantee farmers a price at their cost of production. To do that, the government would offer farmers a non-recourse loan that covers most of their costs of production — essentially, an offer to buy their products at cost if a farmer can’t get a better price from a private purchaser on the market before the end of the loan period. Farmers can either repay the loan by selling their products or they can forfeit the products they used as collateral for the loan at the end of the loan period.

If the farmer does not sell those products to a private buyer during that time period, then the government will store the products in reserves. As supply comes off the market as a result, prices will rise. And if prices rise beyond a certain point, the government can release the supply from the reserves back onto the market, stabilizing prices once again. This mechanism guarantees farmers a fair price at a far lower cost than the current subsidy system.

In addition, to address overproduction, farmers will have the option of bidding acres of land currently used to produce commodities into conservation programs. USDA will offer attractive prices based on the environmental benefit that repurposing the land towards conservation programs would provide. This will provide farmers with the choice — and revenue — to diversify their farms, rather than face mounting pressure to produce more and more of the same. .

This approach has advantages beyond guaranteeing farmers a fair price for their goods. It gives us the tools to stabilize farm income where farmers aren’t getting prices at the cost of production, like commodity cropsand dairy. It enhances our food security by giving the government access to reserves if needed — a particularly importantconsideration as climate change continues to disrupt food production. It addresses our overproduction problem and helps reduceenvironmental damage. And it keeps consumer prices relatively stable.

It would also save taxpayers billions. Because a supply management program only pays for the amount of commodities that it takes off of the market, it would substantially reduce costs for taxpayers who, in the current subsidy approach, can end up paying for every single bushel and bale that farmers grow.

Paying farmers to fight climate change

To transition to a sustainable farm economy, we also need to diversify our agriculture sector. As President, I will lead a full-out effort to decarbonize the agricultural sector by investing in our farmers and giving them the tools, research, and training they need to transform the sector — so that we can achieve the objectives of the Green New Deal to reach net-zero emissions by 2030.

This begins with paying farmers for embracing techniques that promote a sustainable future for all of us. Farmers are already adopting climate-friendly practices — including provenand profitable techniques like cover crops. But today, there are far more farmers who want to join land conservation programs than there are funds available to support them. That’s because we have continually underfunded a tried-and-true program — the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) — that provides funding for farmers eager to transition to sustainable practices, and that delivers substantial returnsto taxpayers.

My plan will make it economically feasible for farmers to be part of the climate change solution by increasing CSP’s payments for sustainable farming practices from around $1 billion today to $15 billion annually — and expanding the types of practices eligible for compensation — so that every farmer who wants to use their land to fight climate change can do so. This will put our future investment in conservation above the level we currently fund commodity programs. And I will support staff at USDA to empower them in the fight against climate change, from scientists in Washington all the way down to the county-level offices tailoring solutions to challenges in their local communities.

Research and innovation are also essential in supporting a transition to sustainable farming.I will dedicate resources from the $400 billion R&D commitment in my Green Manufacturing Plan towards innovations for decarbonizing the agriculture sector, including a farmer-led Innovation Fund that farmers can apply to use towards pioneering new methods of sustainable farming, like agroforestry.

Our land grant universities also have a critical role to play — but first, we need to reclaim our land grant universities from Big Ag and restore them to their core purpose of supporting our family farmers. My Administration will reinvest in our land grant universities and focus their agricultural efforts in part on evaluating farmers’ ideas to decarbonize the agricultural sector and training a new generation of farmers.

Take on Big Ag to level the playing field for family farmers

We also must take on Big Ag head on if we want to create a new farm economy. When Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture told farmers to “get big or get out,” he paved the way for the giant agribusinesses that have eroded America’s rural communities and turned the agricultural sector into one of the largest polluters, all while making huge profits.

That ends now. I will use every tool at my disposal to level the playing field for family farmers and hold agribusinesses accountable for the damage they’ve wrought on our farmland.

• Break up Big Agribusinesses. Under my plan to level the playing field for America’s farmers I’ll use every tool I have to break up big agribusinesses, including by reviewing — and reversing — anti-competitive mergers.
• Strengthen rules and enforcement under the Packers and Stockyards Act. In 1921, Congress passed the Packers & Stockyards Act (P&S Act) to protect independent farmers. But Trump has eliminated Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) — the office responsible for upholding the P&S Act — as an independent office. My administration will restore GIPSA and make it easier for farmers to bring suits against unfair practices — including by clarifying that they do not have to prove harm across the entire sector to bring a claim.
• Make sure programs benefit independent family farmers, not the rich and powerful. Agribusinesses exploit loopholes to put taxpayer dollars that should be going towards family farmers into their own pockets instead. The Trump administration has handed over billions more into the pockets of the wealthiest through trade war bailouts. On average, the top 1% of recipients received over $180,000, and the bottom 80% percent received less than $5,000. — all without Congressional authorization. I will prevent huge factory farms from accessing funds intended to benefit family farmers, like those for payment limitations and for programs like EQIP, and ban companies that violate labor and environmental standards from accessing funds, too.
• Hold Big Ag accountable for environmental abuses. Agribusinesses are the likely culprits for polluting hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers and streams and causing dead zones in our waters, including in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. I will make agribusinesses pay the full costs of the environmental damage they wreak by closing the loopholes that CAFOs use to get away with polluting and beefing up enforcement of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts against them, including by working with state and local officials.

Build out local and regional food systems that support rural farmers and their communities

Because giant agribusinesses control entire supply chains, many small farmers today must send their products to huge packaging and distribution centers that are hundreds of miles away from their farms and from the end consumer. This deprives rural communities from access to produce, contributing to food deserts and obesity.

I will provide farmers and rural communities with the resources they need to build thriving local and regional food systems so that every community has access to healthy food — and the billions in economic opportunities that come with it.

I will use the full power of federal and state procurement to ensure access to local, sustainable produce in all communities. My administration will expand the “Farm-to-School” program a hundredfold and turn it into a billion-dollar “Farm to People” program in which all federally-supported public institutions — including military bases and hospitals — will partner with local, independent farmers to provide fresh, local food.

To meet this additional demand, farmers will need access to local and regional supply chain infrastructure. USDA’s Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) currently invests $50M a year in local infrastructure-building projects — which experts estimate falls far short of meeting the substantial demand. I will increase LAMP’s funding ten-fold, investing $500M a year over the next decade to fund food hubs, distribution centers, and points-of-sale that our rural and small town communities can use.

Create opportunities for diverse and beginning farmers

Farmers of color have experienced a longhistory of discrimination, some of it at the hands of the federal government. From 1910 to 1997, black farmers were stripped of 90% of black-owned farmland. They received a mere fraction of the value of the land they lost — a staggering loss of wealth that is a major contributor to the racial wealth gap. My plan will end the policies that have perpetuated this discrimination and help rural families of color build wealth and sustainable livelihoods.

Addressing the systematic dispossession of land in communities of color, including Black farmers and Native American communities. Over the past century, Black farmers were stripped of 90% of black-owned farmland and received a mere fraction of the value of the land they lost — largely because they held the land as “heirs’ property,” an unstable and much-exploited form of ownership. I will establish programs to assist heirs’ property owners and make sure they retain access to their land, including building on successes in the 2018 Farm Bill to allow heirs’ property owners to present additional types of documentation to not only access USDA programs, but also other federal programs in FEMA and HUD. I will also fully fund the relending program enacted in the 2018 Farm Bill to expand support services for farmers of color, including legal and technical assistance to help farmers hold on to their land — and prioritize lending organizations operating in states that have enacted model legislation that protects heirs’ property ownership.

Native American communities have also experienced challenges related to fractionated land ownership. This problem was caused by a destructive federal policy from the late 1800s that allotted tribal lands held in common to individual tribal members and sold additional tribal lands to non-Native settlers and commercial interests. This policy eventually led to roughly two-thirds of all reservation lands being taken from tribes without compensation. Several generations later, individual tribal allotments are now co-owned by many people — sometimes hundreds or thousands — making it difficult to use the land or coordinate activities on it.

Government policy created this problem, and government must help fix it. That’s why I will expand funding for the Indian Tribal Land Acquisition Loan Program and the Highly Fractionated Indian Land Loan Program, USDA programs that help tribal governments acquire land and preserve it for future generations. And I will also push Congress to provide another infusion into the Trust Land Consolidation Fund..

Expand access to credit and land for new and diverse farmers. Women and farmers of color have been disproportionately excluded from accessing the credit and land they need to farm. The Farm Credit System was founded a century ago as a government-sponsored enterprise to provide credit for farmers — but it has strayedfrom its central mission and instead is pocketing big profits. I will require FCS to allocate 10% of its $5 billion in annual profits towards supporting new and diverse farmers through regional lending mechanisms. I will make sure that farmers can access land, too, by stopping foreign interests from buying up American farmland and expanding the use of programs like the transition incentives program. Native American Community Development Financial Institutions also provide crucial access to credit in underbanked areas and for underbanked businesses, especially farmers. We should provide significant financial support to Native CDFIs.

Invest in protecting the civil rights of farmers of color. I will fully fund and staff USDA’s Office of Civil Rights and administrative law courts — so that they have the resources necessary to resolve discrimination complaints at a reasonable pace. I will direct regular audits of USDA to ensure that it is not discriminating against farmers of color in issuing loans or subsidy grants. And I will increase the agency’s transparency by creating an online civil rights database that would regularly report on the complaint process.

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My plan will help create a new farm economy where family farmers have financial security and the freedom to do what they do best. Farmers of all backgrounds will finally have the economic freedom to pursue diverse, sustainable farming — and get paid up front for doing so. Americans will have a steady and affordable supply of food. Kids in rural communities will have healthy lunches grown in their backyards and packaged at local food hubs run by small town entrepreneurs. Taxpayers won’t pay twice — once at the grocery store and once through their taxes — for overproduced commodities. We will replenish our soil and our water to chart a path towards a climate solution and achieve the goals of the Green New Deal.

[NWBuck 8584]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

A New Farm Economy

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/a-new-farm-economy-8db50fac0551

 

 

I'm 100% #TeamWarren, but struggle with this a bit (mostly due to my ignorance).

Wouldn't this (like the Trump Farmer Subsidies) merely support the large corporations that own and facilitate most farming now? I'd love to be wrong, but it feels like the "family farm" that this is designed to support hasn't been a reality in years.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

39 minutes ago, NWBuck said:

I'm 100% #TeamWarren, but struggle with this a bit (mostly due to my ignorance).

Wouldn't this (like the Trump Farmer Subsidies) merely support the large corporations that own and facilitate most farming now? I'd love to be wrong, but it feels like the "family farm" that this is designed to support hasn't been a reality in years.

Did you not see this part?

 

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Take on Big Ag to level the playing field for family farmers

We also must take on Big Ag head on if we want to create a new farm economy. When Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture told farmers to “get big or get out,” he paved the way for the giant agribusinesses that have eroded America’s rural communities and turned the agricultural sector into one of the largest polluters, all while making huge profits.

That ends now. I will use every tool at my disposal to level the playing field for family farmers and hold agribusinesses accountable for the damage they’ve wrought on our farmland.

• Break up Big Agribusinesses. Under my plan to level the playing field for America’s farmers I’ll use every tool I have to break up big agribusinesses, including by reviewing — and reversing — anti-competitive mergers.
• Strengthen rules and enforcement under the Packers and Stockyards Act. In 1921, Congress passed the Packers & Stockyards Act (P&S Act) to protect independent farmers. But Trump has eliminated Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) — the office responsible for upholding the P&S Act — as an independent office. My administration will restore GIPSA and make it easier for farmers to bring suits against unfair practices — including by clarifying that they do not have to prove harm across the entire sector to bring a claim.
• Make sure programs benefit independent family farmers, not the rich and powerful. Agribusinesses exploit loopholes to put taxpayer dollars that should be going towards family farmers into their own pockets instead. The Trump administration has handed over billions more into the pockets of the wealthiest through trade war bailouts. On average, the top 1% of recipients received over $180,000, and the bottom 80% percent received less than $5,000. — all without Congressional authorization. I will prevent huge factory farms from accessing funds intended to benefit family farmers, like those for payment limitations and for programs like EQIP, and ban companies that violate labor and environmental standards from accessing funds, too.
• Hold Big Ag accountable for environmental abuses. Agribusinesses are the likely culprits for polluting hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers and streams and causing dead zones in our waters, including in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. I will make agribusinesses pay the full costs of the environmental damage they wreak by closing the loopholes that CAFOs use to get away with polluting and beefing up enforcement of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts against them, including by working with state and local officials.

 

[NWBuck 8584]

Just now, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Did you not see this part?

 

 

Nope, just scanned it initially. Thanks for pointing that out! #TeamWarren

[bad_teammate 13224]

She's good, folks