My Weekly Column
In October, I completed my fourth biannual 36 County Tour, which takes me to all 36 counties in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District at least twice every year. My visits, meetings, and conversations contribute greatly to my work in Congress for our families, farmers, businesses, and rural communities. It’s through my discussions with Iowans that policy ideas take shape, and we begin to roll out solutions to the challenges facing our communities, state, and nation.
On Thursday October 24th, I officially completed my fourth biannual 36 County Tour – making at least two stops in every county in the 4th Congressional District every year. This is a promise that I made to Iowans when I first ran for Congress, and I’ve kept my word by registering more than 320 stops over the last four years.
While I’ve been out on the road traveling from town to town on my 36 County Tour, the sights and sounds of this year’s harvest are on full display. Combines, tractors, and grain carts dot the fields, farmers are hauling their crops to market, and our farm families are preparing for winter. Our annual harvest serves as an important reminder that agriculture powers our economy and supports our rural communities.
Over the last several weeks, we’ve received negative reports and forecasts about the economy and our fiscal outlook. Inflation rose in September – opposite expectations – and was up 2.4% from just a year prior while the National Federation of Independent Business’s Small Business Optimism Index registered at 91.5 in September, which is the 33rd consecutive month under the 50-year average of 98.
On October 1st, the new President of Mexico – Claudia Sheinbaum – was officially sworn into office. While politics in Mexico may seem inconsequential to domestic affairs here in the United States, this development is very significant for our country, and particularly for our agricultural community.
More than three years ago, the world watched in horror as President Biden – in conjunction with Vice President Harris and advisors on his national security team – orchestrated the botched and disorganized withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. This colossal failure of leadership cost the lives of 13 brave American servicemembers, portrayed weakness on the global stage, and left more than $7 billion in U.S. military equipment behind, which has since fallen into the hands of the Taliban.
After years of inflation, high interest rates, increased energy costs, trade uncertainty, and bureaucratic red tape, the outlook for the farm economy is bleak. U.S. farmers and producers continue to face drops in farm income, regulations like WOTUS still pose the threat of punitive and costly fines, and inflation has made the cost of doing business more expensive and forced producers to delay new equipment purchases.
For decades, China has threatened our national security through both overt and covert measures. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and affiliated individuals and entities have rapidly increased purchases of American farmland, stolen valuable intellectual property and other critical technologies, infiltrated our schools and universities, and violated our trade laws with impunity. As the world becomes increasingly volatile, we have a duty to protect our country and the American people from CCP influence and interference.
In 2017, Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) – the single largest and most comprehensive reform of the tax code in decades. As promised, this legislation boosted our economy, strengthened our global competitiveness, and let American families, farmers, and small businesses keep more of their hard-earned money.
When I was first elected to Congress, I promised that I would focus my energy on finding solutions to the challenges facing our families, farmers, businesses, and rural communities. Nearly four years later, my mission hasn’t changed. I work every day to ensure that the voice of Iowans is heard loud and clear in the halls of Congress and that I do everything in my power to advance policies that strengthen our economy, support agriculture, lower costs for our families, and keep our nation secure.