The New Homestead Act has been reintroduced in the United States Senate. It offers bold action to reverse rural community decline.
Sponsored by Senators Bryon Dorgan (D-ND), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and eight others, the Act offers incentives to live and establish businesses in counties that have lost at least 10 percent of their population over the last 20 years.
It includes two provisions championed by the Center for Rural Affairs:
* A 30 percent tax credit for investing in small owner-operated businesses.
* Tax incentives and matching funds for saving money to start a business, buy a home, get an education or pay for health care.
In addition, the Act would provide:
* Forgiveness of 50 percent of college loans for recent graduates.
* Up to a $5000 tax credit for home purchases.
* Tax incentives for new buildings.
* A federally subsidized $3 billion venture capital fund to invest in businesses.
The New Homestead Act needs some refinement as it moves forward. As drafted, the tax incentives for new buildings and venture capital could be used to subsidize corporate mega farms.
The Act also needs companion legislation. It needs to be accompanied by farm policy reforms to strengthen family farms and ranches and new conservation initiatives that enable rural communities to use access to land and a quality environment as a development asset.
The New Homestead Act is not the whole answer. But it is a critical part of the comprehensive policy needed to reverse rural decline.
Most important, it makes a statement that the communities of Rural America matter. Strong communities bring out the best in us. They restrain our most selfish impulses and elevate our instinct to help others; essential to building a strong society. It’s time for public policy to recognize that.
http://www.cfra.org/policy/new_homestead_act
New Homestead Act
A timely post darius and an astute observation about how the tax incentives could be abused to fund corporate mega farms.
The following articles by John Ikerd might also be of interest:
Reclaiming Rural America from Corporate Agriculture
This paper is a statement of my truth about what’s happening in rural America, why it’s happening, and what rural people can do about it. Your truth may be different from mine, and if so, that’s okay with me. What’s most important is that we each have sound reasons for believing what we believe to be true. And, “because someone else wrote it or said it,” is not a sound reason for believing anything. I write and speak my truth with conviction because I know why I believe what I believe to be true.
Rural communities are being systematically polluted and plundered by an industrial agriculture that is increasingly under the control of large agribusiness corporations. A quick examination of the types of economic development strategies being touted for rural areas reveals some valuable insights into their dilemma. Many rural communities, desperate for jobs, are encouraged to compete for new prisons. If they can’t get a prison, they may be encouraged to settle for a landfill, so they can bury trash from some distant urban center. If they can’t get a landfill, they can probably get a toxic waste incinerator or a nuclear waste site. And if all else fails, they are encouraged to roll out the welcome mat for large-scale confinement animal feeding operations. The corporate world sees rural areas as empty spaces occupied by desperate people that can be exploited as dumping grounds for the wastes from their environmentally and socially degrading business activities. The profits go to wealthy corporate investors, while rural people are paid but a few dollars to dispose of their human, material, and animal wastes.
full text of article here:
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/Wash%20DC%20Reclaim.htm
Small Farmers, Big Markets: Working Together for Sustainability
For decades, American farmers have been told they had to either get bigger or get out of farming. Now farmers are told that getting bigger is not enough, that even big farmers will have become contract producers; they will have to give in to corporate control. So now, it’s get big and give in, or get out of farming. However, an increasing number of farmers are defying the advice of the agriculture experts and agricultural establishment. They are not giving in, they are not getting big, and they are not getting out. They are finding ways to survive and even prosper on small farms. These small farmers are new hope for the future of farming in America.
full text of article here:
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/Sikeston-LU-SmFm.htm
Reweaving the Fabric of Rural America - Food as a Common Thread
When a museum today finds a peace of precious fabric that has been torn, conservators are called in to analyze the threads and to restore the fabric by reweaving it. I also recall from my childhood when my mother found a tear in a linen tablecloth or in a favorite dress, she would talk about finding someone to reweave it. Reweaving apparently requires a good deal of patience, skill, and diligence, but when something truly precious is torn, it’s worth reweaving. During my lifetime, I have seen the precious fabric of rural American torn asunder.
full text of article here:
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/PASA%20-%20Food%20is%20Common%20Thread.htm
hmm......
Darius check your Dmail please......
The Bill is in the Senate Finance Committee. S. 1093: New Homestead Act of 2007
A bill to reward the hard work and risk of individuals who choose to live in and help preserve America's small, rural towns, and for other purposes.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1093
This website has a pdf file you can download with all the particulars of the New Homestead Act of 2005 (which failed to pass).
http://www.cfra.org/node/78
The text of the new Bill, S. 1093: New Homestead Act of 2007, is here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:1:./temp/~c110bCZXS2:e1004:
Thank you for the links darius.
did this pass?
LOL, I'm not really sure... here's the 'status' page link
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1093
nope, not past the "introduction" phase...
Sigh...
you know all those congressmen/women are too busy getting their choice for president in there to push any un-necessary bills... this just ins't high profile enough... ;-(
This is what's needed to get a grass roots movement going, not another "economic stimulus" check that goes right toward paying the increased gas or electric bills. Thanks Darius.
Pam, right on!!
well, the farm bill passed, was the homestead act a part of it?
Accckkk... The Farm Bill passed, but in my mind I was thinking The Homestead Act was part of it. Alas, not so.
well, the farm bill is sorta good news???!
Hi All here,
Its my first time on the forum but it looks great. Darius can you tell me which other countries have a current homesteading act as you said in one of your posts, thanks in advance, Ron
Ron, did I say that? Where? I have no recollection about Acts in other countries...
It would be better if Actual People Voted on these Bills not congress men or sentors once a year the people of the USA should be able to vote on new bills i think a lot more would get done to
Until those in power allow us some say in the wording there probably would be very little difference. Nobody in their(his/her) right mind would leave that much ambiguity unless they really wanted to use it to some advantage. Actual People don't usually need to work that way.
gee, then the bill would have to be written in Actual English, and Actual other languages...
That May be So but thats not the way its supose to be A Gov For the People By the People
oh, i agree paul, just being funny...
I had been here thinking that totally ignoring government as irrelevant WAS a grass roots movement. The governing of the people by the people for the people has been going on for more than 3 centuries here (euro-culture time). The governing of the government by the government for the government, on the other hand, is obviously out of control. Constituting a government that could control itself by not getting its dirty mitts in things not concerning it was what all that original writing was about.
Tf, Actual English has been found to be not suitable for government uses and was discarded as its lingua franca in around 1790.
gee, grownut, you been around that long? LOL...
TF - If you saw the way I dress....
OK, I ranted. oops. Actually grew up w/ people who studied all that and company was expected. Sorry guys, maybe a somewhat too cynical joke.
well, when it comes to the govt coming through on these things, i am getting pretty cynical myself!
Sorry Darius you did not write this yourself. re - other countries that allow homesteading. It was written by "Terry" on this site somewhere, read through to your post from there and made the wrong connection
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