Editorial: Rural lip service

President Biden is bound for Minnesota, and his Cabinet secretaries are fanning out across the county to tout what the administration has done for Rural America. The tour is missing Buena Vista County, unfortunately, because we have almost nothing to show for all this infrastructure money and Inflation Relief Act cash.

Storm Lake has about $80 million in water needs for a major world protein processing center. FEMA says: Nada, nope, not today. Better luck next time. Same thing with the Linn Grove dam, and our bridge projects. We get squat. It’s because of a lot of things: Gov. Kim Reynolds refused pandemic relief assistance, the Iowa Department of Transportation thinks its Sioux City office is in Sioux Falls, Rep. Randy Feenstra swears off earmarks for transportation and water infrastructure, and Northwest Iowa wouldn’t vote for Biden if he campaigned in person with the Messiah.

Iowa is not a swing state so it gets no hydrogen hub. We can barely get funding to interest anyone around here in planting cover crops or native grass to protect our lakes and rivers. Most of the climate money is doled out to corporations in hopes that it trickles down to the farm. We know how trickle-down economics works — it trickles into the pockets of agribusiness and collects there.

Our politicians write a lot of letters about anti-trust. Feenstra and Sen. Chuck Grassley had their chance to do right by livestock producers when Sonny Perdue was agriculture secretary. Crickets. Instead, the USDA offered the meatpackers subsidies for trade interruptions. The same thing is happening with the Biden Administration. Storm Lake goes begging for water needs while USDA writes a check for climate initiatives to Tyson or Cargill. This little town is expected to pay for the huge water improvements on inflationary water rates levied on poor working folks. Our roads are an embarrassment and a danger. We have no one working on our behalf in Des Moines or Washington. The lack of support is apparent. It is telling that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack of Iowa is not scheduled to visit Iowa during the rural states roadshow.

Given that rural Iowa bleeds red, one would think that Gov. Reynolds, Rep. Feenstra, Sen. Evans and Rep. Megan Jones would be hollering to high heaven about the needs of Storm Lake and Buena Vista County. Obviously, they don’t because it would point to their own shortcomings. We are left to fend for ourselves, which is better in theory than in practice as your next water bill will attest.