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Why no 'Marshall Plan' for America's rural areas?
(Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Dee Davis op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Tommy Blair came from Wagoner, Okla., population 7,669. He played the
drums at Broken Arrow High School.
Levi Kinchen was reared in Tickfaw, La., population 617. He killed his
first deer when he was 9.
Jacob Butler was from Wellsville, Kan., population 1,606. His father,
Jim, said the Butler family "believed in things that were right."
All three are dead now, killed in Iraq in the last few months. All
three came from rural America, as did a surprising number of their
brothers and sisters in arms. The Americans who died in Iraq came from
Comfort, Texas; and Clifton, Va., and Elba, Ala. This has been a war
waged by America's small towns.
Congress is now debating a funding extension for Iraqi peacekeeping and
reconstruction that would bring the total to $150 billion. The Bush
administration says we have to spend that much because the price of
failure is incalculable if we lose in Iraq.
Would it be unpatriotic to take a moment from the current debate to
ask, "Who lost rural America?"
Of the 250 poorest counties in the United States, 244 are rural. Rural
households average 27 percent less in earnings than their metropolitan
counterparts, and the poverty rate is 21 percent higher. The suicide
rate for males over 15 is 80 percent higher, and the rate of alcohol
and drug abuse is significantly higher among rural young people. Rural
eighth-graders are 104 percent likelier to use amphetamines and 83
percent likelier to use crack cocaine than their peers in metropolitan
areas.
Rural residents are more likely to be victims of violence than urban
Americans. Rural areas have just half the number of physicians per
capita, and rural school spending is 25 percent less per pupil. Forty
percent of the rural population has no access to public transportation,
even though half of the rural poor do not have automobiles to get them
to work or to the doctor.
These conditions exist for a significant number of Americans. There are
more rural Americans than Iraqis. The 56 million people who live in
rural America, if counted separately, would rank as the world's 23rd
largest nation, just behind France, Italy and Great Britain. Yet as a
nation, we find difficulty acknowledging that the challenges rural
Americans face are national challenges, let alone national priorities
on par with rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq.
Last year, Congress passed a farm bill that did next to nothing for
most of rural America. Less than 2 percent of rural families earn their
primary living on farms. The farm bill is a five-year, $150 billion
subsidy for large agricultural corporations.
Tucked in the bill was a $1 billion economic development program for
rural communities to support job creation and electronic
infrastructure. That program was killed in committee. It was not a
budget priority.
On the Sunday that President Bush spoke to the American people to make
the case for an additional $87 billion for the Iraqi effort, musicians
from around the country gathered in Columbus, Ohio, for the annual Farm
Aid concert to raise a few hundred thousand dollars to help small farms
and finance seat-of-the-pants economic initiatives around rural America.
While Congress rushes to fulfill our obligations to the oil-rich Middle
East, rural America holds a telethon. While Iraq is being offered a
21st-century Marshall Plan, perhaps rural America should ask for more
than a federal exit strategy.
Dee Davis is president of the Center for Rural Strategies, a non-profit
communications organization based in Whitesburg. | |
