Farmers Angry Bush Left Farm Bill Out of Speech
Let's see ... economy .. check. The success of the surge ... check. Renewing No Child Left Behind ... check. Nasty Iranian rulers ... check. Shot at Bill Clinton's remark about his willingness to pay more taxes ... check.
President Bush's checklist-like State of the Union speech covered a lot of important ground. But it seems like there was something missing, something really big ...
Oh yea, the farm bill.
No where in his speech did the president mention the multibillion-dollar measure now pending in Congress. In fact, he never mentioned "rural" once, and the only time he talked about agriculture was in the context of overseas producers. And as Politico reports, the U.S. agricultural community is not happy about being left out.
"Rural Americans are the genuine forgotten people, and you have just underscored that," William Greener, a longtime Republican political consultant who has focused on rural voting patterns, told Politico.
"As someone who has a passion for rural America, I certainly wish the president had given it more attention. And I would advise my fellow Republicans: to take any voter group, most especially rural Americans, for granted is at our own peril. It's not a good idea."
While the Bush administration may have stayed away from mentioning the expensive bill at a time when the president wants to reestablish credentials as a budget-hawk, it provides an opening for Democrats - for instance, as we mentioned yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama is campaign aggressively in normally red-state Kansas.
10:21 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink
