I hope our farmers find the confines of the ballot box a place for their own retaliation
Kentucky farmers hurt by Trump's trade wars won't speak up — they fear GOP backlash
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2019/05/24/donald-trump-trade-wars-hurt-kentucky-farmers-who-fear-retaliation-republican-party/1222909001/
The Republican administration has once again increased tariffs on China. Meanwhile, farmers across the commonwealth continue to struggle from trade deficits inspired by the first round of disputes. Caught in the Republican party’s political crosshairs, farmers are stuck in an environment that has cultivated fear for anyone who dares to speak against the mighty GOP.
My name is Jim Pat Wilson, and I have a lot less to lose than some of my farming friends and I want to speak up for those who fear they will be retaliated against.
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And just like Mexico isn’t paying for a wall, China won’t pay for Trump’s tariffs. The funds will ultimately come from the taxpayers because it is federal money that is used for the bailouts.
Adding insult to injury, the Republican 2020 budget calls for a 15% funding drop for the Department of Agriculture. The USDA budget cuts lower subsidies for crop insurance premiums to 48% from 62% and limits subsidies for growers who make less than $500,000 annually. The 2018 Farm Bill that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles rant and rave about with their hemp headlines hide their continued pro-corporate policy promises.
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Why aren’t we hearing more concern? Because the current administration has made it impossible for farmers to criticize without retaliation from Republican landowners.
A farmer who wrote an opinion piece early last year in response to farmers’ incomes dropping more than 50% since 2013 and highlighted the increase in farmer suicides due to status-quo policies, lost 300 acres of sharecropped land because word got out that he was a Democrat.
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Six economists in the USDA research branch quit the Republican administration in a single day late last month after the Economic Research Service (ERS) published findings revealed the new Republican tax law and Trump's trade disputes are hurting American farmers.
Republicans have divided neighbors, and our farmers who dare to go against the grain are siloed for speaking up; that’s why so many remain silent. Come Election Day, I hope our farmers find the confines of the ballot box a place for their own retaliation.
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