Feenstra: Sioux Center chamber visits Capitol Building
One of the best parts of my job representing Iowa in Congress is meeting with familiar faces on Capitol Hill. It’s a reminder of why I am grateful to serve our families, farmers, businesses, and rural communities – a responsibility that I take very seriously. The other week, I had the chance to do just that when the Sioux Center Chamber of Commerce made the trip out to Washington, D.C. The group of about a dozen came well prepared with several federal priorities, updates on economic development projects in Sioux Center, and the importance of protecting access to healthcare in rural Iowa. Our discussions were informative and helpful as we work together to deliver solutions to the challenges facing our communities, state, and nation.
A top priority for me is ensuring that our families have access to affordable, high-quality healthcare. We had a productive conversation about how we can keep Sioux Center Health successful for decades to come and offer residents and those from surrounding communities all kinds of care from surgical procedures to behavioral and brain health resources. However, the reality in rural areas is that healthcare is too often out of reach and hospitals face immense financial obstacles to keep their doors open and serve patients. While protecting and improving rural healthcare is a multifaceted endeavor, legislation that I introduced – the Rural Hospital Stabilization Act – to address one piece of the puzzle passed the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in May. The main mission of this bill is to prevent hospital closures in rural communities and ensure continuity of care for our families and seniors. Funds authorized by this initiative can be used to train and hire healthcare workers, retain and compensate employees, renovate outdated facilities, and finance equipment purchases. Keeping our hospitals open, operational, and fully staffed is one way that we can maintain and expand access to care in rural Iowa.
We also talked about economic development in Sioux Center, our growing $35-trillion national debt, and the looming expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the end of 2025. Housing projects are popping up all over Sioux County and Northwest Iowa – and Sioux Center is one of the shining examples as more families look to plant their roots. Amid high interest rates and inflation, I’ve helped introduce a few pieces of legislation to lower the cost of housing, encourage construction in rural areas, and make the dream of homeownership a reality for more families. Another topic of discussion was the litany of pro-growth tax provisions that sunset in 2025 absent congressional action. Those provisions include the doubled standard deduction, the increased child tax credit, the 20% deduction on qualified business income for small businesses, immediate expensing for our farmers and biofuels producers, and R&D expensing for job creators and innovators. I’ve also made it a priority to include the full repeal of the death tax – which unfairly targets family farms and family-owned businesses – in any reauthorization and enhancement of the tax code. These pro-growth, pro-worker, pro-family tax policies strengthened our economy, ensured our agricultural community could compete with China, and let our families and small businesses keep more of their hard-earned money. Serving on the House Ways and Means Committee, extending these provisions and building upon the success of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will be a major focus for me the remainder of this Congress and into the next.
Additionally, we set aside time to touch base on the status of the Farm Bill. I noted that the House Agriculture Committee – of which I am a member – passed the Farm Bill more than 115 days ago with support from four of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Our bill strengthens crop insurance, increases reference prices, opens new export markets for agriculture, overturns California’s ridiculous Proposition 12, invests in agriculture education, and keeps China and our foreign adversaries away from our farmland. 10 bills that I introduced are also included in the Farm Bill like building refrigeration infrastructure both domestically and internationally to ship our perishable commodities worldwide, improving the Livestock Indemnity Program to deliver fair prices for our cattle producers, and lowering the cost of crop insurance for the next generation of Iowa farmers and producers. Like me, they want an updated, five-year Farm Bill passed as soon as possible, and I’ll continue pushing my colleagues in the Senate to act.
Finally, we had a great conversation about making high-speed broadband accessible and affordable for families and businesses in our rural communities. I’ve voiced my strong support for the Affordable Connectivity Program – which provided a discount of up to $30 to millions of households but has since expired – and the urgent need to reauthorize this program. In addition to supporting this program, I also introduced legislation – the Rural Broadband Modernization Act – which will help provide financial support to expand rural broadband access, construct the necessary infrastructure for broadband deployment, and increase minimum broadband speeds in rural areas. At a minimum, as established by this bill, broadband service in rural communities should deliver 100 megabits per second for both upload and download speeds. Portions of this bill are included in the Farm Bill and prioritize entities that are already long-time broadband providers in their respective areas and project areas that have the slowest current connectivity.
While this is not an exhaustive explanation of the Sioux Center Chamber’s visit to Capitol Hill, it gives a good overview of what we discussed and what we hope to accomplish, particularly on the federal side, in the months and years to come. With that said, my promise to our communities across the 4th Congressional District has not changed. I will continue to be a strong voice for our families, farmers, businesses, and rural communities and ensure that Iowans have a seat at the table in Congress.
This op-ed was originally published in the Northwest Iowa Review on September 23, 2024.