Wisconsin dairy farmers put out to pasture
Two days after President Trump’s visit to riot-ravaged Kenosha, Wisconsin, Joe Biden emerged from his basement to follow suit.
His first trip to the battleground state this election year, Biden’s ho-hum address to the handful of town hall attendees at Grace Lutheran Church was safe and predictable. He muddled through most of the Democrats’ standard talking points and called it a day.
His silence on one topic in particular was quite telling, though. Biden didn’t say a single word about his record on supporting the Badger State’s dairy farmers.
Biden voted for many general farm subsidies in 47-year career, and even voted to preserve a $6 million gift to Hawaii sugarcane growers. But when Wisconsin’s dairy industry faced its most desperate hour, Joe Biden was nowhere to be found.
In 1991, the dairy industry was cratering. Squeezed by high costs and low prices, long-time farmers were giving up.
In November of that year, Biden voted “no” on an amendment to an unrelated bill that would have bolstered price supports for the struggling dairy farmers. Sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Bob Kasten (R-Wis.), the amendment failed by only four votes.
Biden’s proposed $2 trillion climate plan, which includes investments in sustainable agriculture, cannot absolve him of abandoning Wisconsin’s dairy farmers when they most needed his vote.
In Biden’s America, farmers are relegated to the back forty.