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August 19, 2011
Farmer Tells Obama, “Please Don’t Challenge Us with More Rules and Regulations”; Condescending Obama Tells the Man, “Call the USDA”
Farmer Tells Obama, “Please Don’t Challenge Us with More Rules and Regulations”; Obama Tells the Man, “Call the USDA”
At Wednesday’s town hall in Atkinson, Ill., a local farmer who said he grows corn and soybeans expressed his concerns to President Obama about “more rules and regulations” – including those concerning dust, noise and water runoff -- that he heard would negatively affect his business.
An Illinois farmer gets called on, and he tells Obama that he is a farmer who enjoys growing “corn and soybeans.”
“Mother Nature has really challenged us this growing season – moisture, drought, whatever. Please don’t challenge us with more rules and regulations from Washington D.C. that hinder us from doing that. We would prefer to start our day in a tractor cab or combine cab rather than filling out forms and permits to do what we like to do.”
He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth before Obama was shouting that “we have the Secretary of Agriculture here,” and then proceeded to tell the farmer not to “believe everything you hear.”
The president, on day three of his Midwest bus tour, replied: “If you hear something is happening, but it hasn’t happened, don’t always believe what you hear.”
When the room broke into soft laughter, the president added, “No -- and I’m serious about that.”
Obama's advice: “Don’t always believe what you hear…Contact USDA. Talk to them directly…My suspicion is, a lot of times, they’re going to be able to answer your questions and it will turn out that some of your fears are unfounded.”
The farmer is concerned about the ridiculous burdensome regulations from USDA, the EPA, the Agriculture Department, etc. Obama then had the audacity (he has a lot of that) to tell the farmer to “call the USDA” if he has concerns.
Are you kidding? Obama talked right past the man. He did not hear what the farmer was really saying with his statement: “Leave us the heck alone and let us do our job and live our lives without interference from the Government!!”
When this POLITICO reporter decided to take the president's advice and call USDA for an answer to the Atkinson town hall attendee's question, I found myself in a bureaucratic equivalent of hot potato -- getting bounced from the feds to Illinois state agriculture officials to the state farm bureau.
So Politico reporter MJ Lee decided to do just that, and see how easy it was for average citizens to “contact USDA” and get their questions answers and fears alleviated. The entire account is worth a read, but Lee’s success (or lack thereof) at finding information about the specific regulations mentioned by the farmer in the clip can be summed up by this response from the USDA’s office in Washington, received after an entire day’s worth of phone calls and red tape that most (but maybe not the president) would expect from a gargantuan government bureaucracy:
Secretary [of Agriculture Tom] Vilsack continues to work closely with members of the Cabinet to help them engage with the agricultural community to ensure that we are separating fact from fiction on regulations because the administration is committed to providing greater certainty for farmers and ranchers. Because the question that was posed did not fall within USDA jurisdiction, it does not provide a fair representation of USDA’s robust efforts to get the right information to our producers throughout the country.
No help at all!!!!!
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Wild Thing's comment......
If you hear something is happening, but it hasn’t happened, don’t always believe what you hear.”
Things Yogi Berra might say .
Interesting that liberal Politico did this. So little by little some of the media is getting fed up and questioning Obama and what he says.
And what a horrible way Obama treated the farmer. A real NON answer to be sure.
Posted by Wild Thing at August 19, 2011 03:55 AM
Comments
With a population less than a thousand, the rural Atkinson, Illinois corn and soybean farmer and the Chicago community organizer are both within the same state and yet they could not be from more disparate worlds. The farmer well grounded on Earth, the condescending clueless bloke on Mars.
As for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, he's far too busy printing food stamps and finding more and more Americans to be dependent on them. Established in 1964, a record 46 million Americans are now on the SNAP Food Stamp Program. For the left, this is an accomplishment.
These socialist central planners are indeed treasonous. Their folly does so much more than bring down a country, they wreak havoc and destroy families with all their redistribution and "good intentions". Spending other people's money makes them "feel good".
They make nothing, they construct nothing, the build nothing, they grow nothing, they produce nothing. With all their equality and environmentalism they only bring down, they destroy the productive work of others in their pursuit of a life by government ration for all of us.
"If you hear something is happening, but it hasn’t happened, don’t always believe what you hear.”
What kind of leadership is that ?
This Presidency is sinking fast.
After a good scrubbing, the White House will be habitable and a place of honor again.
Posted by: Carlos at August 19, 2011 01:20 PM
Obama is the biggest DUMB ASS to EVER infest the Oval Office...
Posted by: TexasFred at August 19, 2011 06:27 PM
Carlos, well said.
"Illinois corn and soybean farmer and the Chicago community organizer are both within the same state and yet they could not be from more disparate worlds."
This is so true and it is huge.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 20, 2011 12:43 AM
Texas Fred, he really is and I also think that is why they hid his school records so we would not see how poorly he did. He is a sham, but one that hates our country and is a total socialist/communist.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 20, 2011 12:45 AM
Illinois has been the most divided of states since the Civil War. The northern Illinois out to about fifty miles outside of Chicago has been based around immigrants and there are never any election surprises. What the bosses say goes. The southern part of the state of farmers and small towns has probably not elected for a Democrat since Roosevelt.
This is also the greatest example for why the Electoral College must be kept. If the election that could be stolen did not stop at the Illinois boarder then Chicago would be (on paper) a city of twenty million and would vote far into the night. Whatever vote that was needed to win the national election would be delivered before morning. As Chicago sinks first from America's second city to the third city that it is now to fourth in a few years it becomes ever harder to cover up the vote fabrication.
Posted by: Avitar at August 20, 2011 05:11 AM
