“Strong rural communities are key to a stronger America,” said President Barack Obama in announcing the White House Rural Council this summer. “That’s why I’ve established the White House Rural Council to make sure we’re working across government to strengthen rural communities and promote economic growth.”
The White House Rural Council will coordinate programs across government to encourage public-private partnerships to promote further economic prosperity and quality of life in rural communities nationwide, according to the White House. Chaired by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the Council will be responsible for providing recommendations for investment in rural areas and will coordinate Federal engagement with a variety of rural stakeholders, including agricultural organizations, small businesses, and state, local, and tribal governments.
But here’s what CABPRO thinks in a new post:
“Rural communities are generally small towns with close community ties formed to create relative safety, where everyone knows each other and we help one another. How can BIG Government possibly help us? BIG Government would just screw up a good thing. What is the purpose of the White House Rural Council?…to turn rural communities into ghettos like they have done to the urban metropolitan big cities?
“This new USDA BIG boondoggle comes on the heels of several other like-minded and costly Obama initiatives. In the last few months the USDA has doled out tens of millions of dollars to bring healthy foods to the inner city, recruit more food-stamp recipients and track what minority public school children eat for lunch.
“Just a few days before Obama’s executive order the USDA dropped $10 million on a Farmers Market Promotion Program (http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FMPP) that is to bring fresh and healthy cuisine to low-income neighborhoods (“food deserts”) throughout the USA. Last month the USDA launched a sophisticated internet-based mapping tool “Food Desert Locator” that identifies areas with “limited access to affordable and nutritious foods.”
According to the Obama administration, the program will focus on:
•Jobs: Improve job training and workforce development in rural America
•Agriculture: Expand markets for agriculture, including regional food systems and exports
•Access to Credit: Increase opportunity by expanding access to capital in rural communities and fostering local investment
•Innovation: Promote the expansion of biofuels production capacity and community based renewable energy projects
•Networks: Develop high-growth regional economies by capitalizing on inherent regional strengths
•Health Care: Improve access to quality health care through expansion of health technology systems
•Education: Increase post-secondary enrollment rates and completion for rural students
•Broadband: Support the President’s plan to increase broadband opportunities in rural America
•Infrastructure: Coordinate investment in critical infrastructure
•Ecosystem markets: Expanding opportunities for conservation, outdoor opportunities and economic growth on working lands and public lands
Filed under: Uncategorized
If someone lists the businesses that are CABPRO members I’ll go out of my way to not patronize any of them in the future, if there are alternatives.
Seems to me that there is a point to be made that local communities know what is best for them much more than the folks in Washington DC.
There is a very sad story in the Bee this morning about the destruction of Crescent City California: I would commend it to your reading list.
John
I no longer patronize two businesses since I saw the cabpro nonsense in plain sight. I agree that local communities know better what is better for them than DC and if DC wants to get involved OK as long as the locals are in charge of identifying needs.
Michelle,
It is easy for the locals to identify the needs in their communities: The question is whether they can act on those needs.
The folks in Crescent City have identified the problem in their harbor: All the stuff dumped there by the Tsunami four months ago. However, they cannot act on this knowledge and put it back where it came from until they please their masters in Sacramento and Washington DC, most of whom I would guess have never worked a real job like running a harbor or fishing boat.
However, I am sure that they do enjoy the expensive shrimp dinners they expense to the taxpayers as they discuss some new regulations regarding the Pacific Ocean.
John
John, just because a job isn’t a certain kind of a job, doesn’t mean it isn’t work. Most people have never run a harbor or a fishing boat. The fact that they haven’t means what. Do you have proof that none of the decision makers have never done these things? BTW the folks in DC and Sacramento are not our masters, they are our servants, as in public servants. Sure there is one here or there, just like in any organization who are on power trips, but most of the government workers I’ve ever dealt with do their best day in and day out to do their job as proscribed by law (made by lawmakers we vote in). This is no different than workers anywhere. They get paid little. They get no respect. Still you want them to do a top-notch job. Your CEOs wouldn’t work their half-days on the golf course for such a pittance. If you don’t like a law, work to change it, but don’t disrespect those who are simply carrying out the rules we lay out for ourselves through our elected officials. Everyone runs into some law or rule they don’t like from time to time, but it is not the fault of those we hire to enforce those rules. If you speed, do you blame the officer who gives you a ticket? Same thing here. Do you want to have a civil society or not? There are places with fewer regulations and even places without zoning laws, John. You are free to move to one of those places.
Gail,
I am guessing from your response that you did not actually read the story in the Sacramento Bee.
After you do so, IF you want to leave your comments as they are written I would be happy to respond.
John
So John, the people are waiting on some tests as to the cleanliness of the deposits. The people are also waiting for what you would call government handouts. Where’s your spirit of free enterprise? Aren’t we all supposed to sink or swim on our own. Why should these people get a handout, but inner city kids aren’t supposed to get fresh food.
If the gunk in the harbor is toxic and is dumped into the sea, it may kill the crabs or at the least make them inedible. What will that do the the town’s economy? So let’s just dump tons of toxic gunk offshore and see what it does to the fishing there. If it is toxic, isn’t it better for the town in the long-run to get it out of there? Won’t that keep the fishing grounds clean and what is caught there edible and able to be sold?
BTW, I do not need to read the article to respond to your foolish statement about people not being harbormasters or fishermen.
Gail,
Thank you for reading the story.
IF the gunk was toxic, those in the town would be the first to say keep it out of the ocean and away from the craps. They would also understand the need to meet the deadlines regarding the crab season [as well as the principle of dilution that works very well in the Pacific Ocean].
That is why experience can be important or at least being willing to those who have some: We have lost common-sense in much of government today and I know that from a lot of first hand experience. I cannot begin to recount the times that I watched folks at the capitol who had no real-life experience making rules and regulations with no idea who they would function in the real world.
John
John, I don’t need your thanks for reading the article. My initial comment was not about the article, it was about your comment. Now, just how do they know whether the gunk is toxic or not unless it is tested? In your world, if they want to test it then they just hold a fundraiser, or maybe ask the churches for money and do it. BTW, this has nothing to do with CABPRO. You are the master at changing the subject. Now answer my question. Why should these people be angry at how the government is doing this if the government (as in all of the rest of us) are paying for it? They want the money but they don’t want the rules. They want the money up front, too I see. What makes them, their jobs or their industry any more entitled than anyone else. Shouldn’t they have private insurance in your world? Shouldn’t they be self-sufficient? Shouldn’t they have the seafaring equivalent of an old-fashioned barn raising? You can’t have it both ways any more than the rest of us can have it both ways. You either want government to help folks or you don’t.
Gail,
Now you are making me wonder if you read the article again.
John
I guess you’ll never know, John. Now what about CABPRO?
Thank you John. If the locals want it bad enough they have to act on it. Sometimes it means breaking down the barriers.
I will confess to being addicted to the B&C nuts and bolts aisle. For the specialty items on the wall, they beat out Home Depot every time. I used a more convenient Fox Hardware in Marysville the other day, until I noticed Wonderboard at $19.95 a sheet when it was at $7.95 in HD.
I think kids in high school need a special course that covers what owners of businesses like B&C pass on down to their kids, about the art of doing business. Let’s start with automotive businesses where the journeymen make at most $30/hour when the bossman charges $90/hour. Then move on to the business that is “always broke, no money for higher salaries, don’t pay myself nuthin more than I pay you” but the owner’s equity in the building and inventory increases every month.
This stuff is well hid for the self interests of those who own those businesses, and will never be taught in schools, much as the lawyers in the legislatures will never tax the legal settlements earned by using the court systems, for the support of those systems. Guess who gains the most when the courtrooms are full and a lawyer has 5 clients cooling their heels at the same time, while he collect $180/hour from each of them? Lawyers as a class have no interest in speedy and well funded court systems. No wonder they control the legislatures, as an occupation, more than any other group. There ought to be a law eliminating such one-sidedness, occupationally, in the legislatures.
Lawyers, however, are as dependent on the court system for income as the truckers who pay gasoline taxes for the building and maintenance of the interstates and roads. Nobody complains about “double taxation” there, now do they? But every lawyer I’ve talked to about this, goes for that gun immediately.
END OF RAMBLING RANT..
Keachie, you sound like Rove and his talking points last night on The Liars Network last night. Corporations=people mad, don’t mention em
Small Business, Mayberry, Hardware Stores=Good
Lawyers, FRIVOLOUS lawsuits=Baaaad
Here’s one more for ya:
Banana Republicans=Corporate Lapdogs
Dubya/Murdoch Brainwarshing: So so last decade
Kate
I think we have here a failure to communicate.
More specifically, a failure to read.
Or, perhaps a vested interest in the legal profession?
If you want to know some of the businesses that support of CABPRO with money visit the CABPRO website:
http://www.cabpro.org/CABPRO/CABPRO_Home.html
Review their monthly CABPRO newsletter/magazine… check out the advertisments in the newsletter.
It was cool watching the First Lady working on new veterans homes in rural North Carolina yesterday. I liked her khaki cargo pants she was moving lumber and stuff in…it was way nice of Extreme Makeover too. Kate
Letting people buy fresh and healthy food from the farm with food stamps. Getting fresh and healthy food into inner city food deserts at prices people can afford. Boy we need to oppose that!. CABPRO is nuts.
I also love the racially charged use of the word ghetto. Sure the goal of Obama is to turn everywhere into a ghetto. These people are nuts.
“CABPRO attacks…”
Such violent rhetoric.
And Justified!
Some might say we should have a county ordinance for residential real estate transactions that says:
You are moving into one of the finest areas of California and The Nation.
Full disclosure requires you be notified by us, the seller, that there is a rather vocal segment of the community that is so far gone off the deep end with their utter contempt for anything and anyone that does not think, act speak, and breath pure hatred for any and all non Far, Far, Far, Right Wing, Talking Point Spewing, very light skinned people. Make sure you are gonna tow THEIR LINE if you plan to move here. Otherwise, you will quickly think you have moved into an area close enough to hell that you can hear the bunch bitching and moaning all day and night and in print in local blogs and printed newsletters and such.
Welcome to Nevada County. Most of us are glad you chose to live here. Have a good day and now sign at the bottom. You were warned.
Tow or Toe “their line” Either seems to work just fine.
I’m glad rural America is being shown consideration…there is nothing prohibiting both local and other entities working to improve things that they can improve. People are so quick to snarl “Get off my lawn” at everyone they don’t know squat about. The “Gran Torino” syndrome…loved that movie…good thing Eastwoods nothing like his character, he’d never get another movie made without other peoples ideas and input. Kate
So, how and where can Nevada City sign up for WHRC funds?
I’m not sure what they might be doing for Northern California, except for what they’ve already done: ie, broadband, agriculture and markets like farmers, food for people and other reasonable stuff. I am sure they know all about us though? Maybe Governor Brown talked nice about us. I hope so. Kate
Uphill only bike paths for 49 and 20? Those would be so nice!
I really like B&C and I shop there. Great service, they understand what customer service is all about.
Especially Keith in Plumbing/Electrical, and the whole key making crew area.