Biden’s Policies Are Hurting American Farmers

Biden’s Far-Left Agenda Has Left America’s Heartland In The Dust

BIDEN’S POLICIES HAVE ATTACKED AMERICAN FARMERS AND THEIR LIVELIHOODS

• Tomorrow marks National Agriculture Day, a time to celebrate America’s farmers, ranchers, and growers as we recognize agriculture’s importance to our nation.
• Despite the importance of the agriculture community, Biden policies have left America’s farmers and ranchers out to dry.
• Inflation continues to surge while goods remain scarce, leaving many farms struggling to stay afloat.
• Biden proposed a death tax that would have disproportionately hurt family-owned farms and make it harder to pass family farms down to the next generation.
• On top of higher costs to operate, Biden’s open-borders agenda and increased environmental regulations threaten farmers’ livelihoods.

BIDENFLATION IS CRUSHING FARMERS

• With inflation at a 40-year high, farmers are struggling to “just break even” as production costs outpace commodity prices.
• American farmers are seeing “increased costs across the board,” from fertilizer and pesticides to equipment repairs and seasonal labor.
  • Total farm production costs increased 12 percent in 2021 and are expected to increase an additional 6 percent in 2022.
  • The increased prices for diesel fuel and fertilizer are especially “weighing heavy on farmers minds right now.”
  • Glyphosate, the active ingredient in in one of America’s most widely used weed killers, is up 250 percent from a year ago in part because of “supply chain challenges” Biden promised to fix.
• 30 percent of farmers experienced difficulty purchasing crop inputs last month due to Biden’s supply chain crisis according to Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture.  
• Inflation is squeezing farmers’ wallets, with total net farm income forecast to decrease by $9.7 billion in 2022 when adjusted for inflation.
• Farmers across the nation are being crushed by Bidenflation:
  • North Carolina farmer Brookes Barnes is struggling to keep up, saying, “I just don’t see how I’m going to get paid this year.”
  • A farmer from Central New York said, “if the commodity prices don’t stay up where they are I’m finished as a farmer.”
  • Oklahoma dairy farmer Charlie Coblentz said, “There's not going to be any money made. There's probably be less money made in '22 than '21, because of every input costing more.”

BIDEN’S DEATH TAX WOULD CRUSH AMERICAN FARMERS

• To fund his “Build Back Broke” agenda, Biden has called for repealing the “step-up in basis” tax provision.
  • Repealing this is effectively a new death tax that would cause some family farms to “liquidate businesses, leverage assets, or lay off employees to cover the tax hit.”
  • Biden’s new death tax would kill 80,000 jobs, lower workers’ wages, and shrink the U.S. economy by $100 billion over ten years.
  • Currently farmers who inherit land are exempt from paying capital gains taxes until they sell the land and only have to pay taxes any gains accrued after inheritance.
  • Under Biden’s original tax-and-spend plan, American farmers who inherit land could be taxed more than 40 percent once the landowner dies regardless of whether or not the heir sells the land.
• According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, Biden’s proposal to impose this new death tax would be “devasting to American agriculture and the broader U.S. economy.”
  • Under a Democrat-backed bill that mirrors Biden’s death tax proposals, a farmers average taxes would increase by more than $726,104 per farm.
  • The Iowa Farm Bureau estimated this could cost the average family farm in Iowa as much as $680,000 in additional taxes.
• Despite Biden’s claim that his tax proposal would only affect two percent of farm operations, his own Department of Agriculture found 17 percent of small farms, 66 percent of medium-sized farms, and 80 percent of large farms would have a new tax burden with the elimination of stepped-up basis.

FARMERS ARE BEING HURT BY BIDEN’S OUT OF CONTROL BORDER CRISIS

• Since Biden took office, more than two million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the southern border – pouring across in levels never before seen in DHS history.
• The Biden administration is doing too little too late for Americans affected by the border crisis, with ranchers in Texas forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to repair property broken by illegal immigrants.
  • The Schuster family, who own a ranch in Texas, “have made innumerable repairs to their fences, had animals escape or die, and lost long-term water supplies due to the nonstop trespasses.”
• Ranchers and farmers in Texas are worried for their safety as thousands of illegal immigrants and convicted criminals cross their land each week.
  • Rancher Brad Whitaker of Texas: “Since this administration has taken over, it has just been a complete nightmare. The holes in the fences that they cut, they come in, they’re tearing up the houses, my skinning shed out there, I can’t keep knives in it because they steal them.”
• Biden’s weak enforcement of immigration laws has resulted in fewer deportations and emboldened cartels that are moving into Northern California.
  • Cartels are moving into farming communities and threatening family farms, stealing water from family wells, and bringing illegal immigrants to the area all while threatening anyone that opposes their criminal activities.

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIONS HURT FARMERS

• Biden has imposed burdensome regulations on American farmers and ranchers by expanding the federal government’s definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule.
  • This is an overreach of federal power that allows regulators to examine “waterways” as small as a pothole or a ditch, resulting in large fines and potentially halting farming operations.
  • Both the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattleman’s Beef Association have spoken out against this rule expansion due to its negative effects on farmers.
  • Increased regulations could place massive amounts of land under government control, with one study showing 97 percent of Iowa land could be subject to federal regulations under this rule. 
• As the regulator-in-chief, Biden is also targeting America’s biofuel industry and hurting farmers in the process.
  • In December 2021, Biden announced cuts to biofuel blending requirements, threatening American farmers who produce the necessary inputs for biofuels such as ethanol.
  • Under Biden’s proposal, the EPA plans to reduce the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires oil refineries to “blend billions of gallons of corn-based ethanol.”
• The Biden administration sat on almost $700 million to help biofuel producers for well beyond its promised 60 day roll out, before introducing a proposal to now slash the Renewable Volume Obligations that would reduce the amount of biofuel ethanol in gasoline.