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Senate candidate Kennedy wants to create rural opportunities Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Mark Kennedy wants to create opportunities in rural areas so people can raise their children where they grew up.
Kennedy is running for the state's open Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Mark Dayton.
If elected, Kennedy has a laundry list of items he'd like to accomplish to move rural Minnesota forward.
"You have to have a plan for the right kind of change in agriculture," Kennedy said. His plan includes preventing new taxes on farmers, eliminating the estate tax and making it easier for young farmers to join their parents in the farm operation, fully funding the upgrades on the Mississippi River locks and dams and making sure trade agreements are good for Minnesota agriculture.
A 4-H alumni, Kennedy figures he'd be the only senator who met his wife in 4-H and whose children have all participated in the program, showing sheep at the Carver County Fair.
He didn't grow up on a farm, but he's lived in small towns most of his life, Kennedy said, and he understands what it takes to continue to make agriculture successful.
Kennedy says the 2002 farm bill should be kept in place for a year, avoiding a unilateral disarmament in the middle of World Trade Organization negotiations. When the full farm bill is rewritten, it will need to include permanent disaster assistance and more for renewable energy, he said.
He also favors the continued expansion of the Milk Income Loss Contract program, a program he helped create as a member of the House agriculture committee.
Kennedy wants to make changes to the nation's tax laws. First, he wants to eliminate the estate tax. Second, he wants to take tax credits that went to oil companies in the energy bill and redirect them to the renewable energy industry. He would expand the incentives for buying hybrid vehicles and for installing E85 pumps at filling stations.
He supports a proposal to mandate a 10 percent ethanol blend of gasoline be used nationwide by 2010.
On health care, Kennedy said he has worked hard to level the field for rural health care. He worked to fix reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid. He voted for and helped pass the biggest increase ever for rural health care funding.
There's more to be done to level the playing field for individuals who purchase their own insurance. People employed by large corporations can get a full deduction for their insurance premiums, whereas the self-employed can't. Also, large corporations can buy their insurance at less cost than small businesses or farmers.
When it comes to health care, Congress needs to put patients and doctors first, not big government or big insurance companies, Kennedy said.
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