DES MOINES, Iowa — President Joe Biden is having his team push the American Families Plan, a bill that involves child care, and education.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack joined us Friday morning, May 28th, to talk about how he thinks the plan could help people in rural communities.
Vilsack, a former governor in Iowa, says the plan would provide free universal pre-school to all three and four year-olds. It would also provide two years of free community college to students. Vilsack says farmers are concerned with how the federal government is going to pay for this.
"The reality is the President's been very clear about this," Vilsack said when asked if there would be a tax increase on the rich to pay for the plan. "He does not believe anyone who makes less than $400,000 should be affected by the costs of this program. He also believes it's not appropriate to add to the national debt with these programs, so he's directly indicated how he would pay for these programs."
The agriculture secretary says more than 98% of family farms would not be impact what the President's proposing. He says only large farming operations owned by investors as opposed to family farmers would see a tax increase.
What about the Farmers to Families Food Box Program?
It ends Monday, May 31st. The program was put on by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it helped families in need get access to fresh foods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In our area, families could stop by Credit Island in Davenport on a weekly basis to grab fresh produce, milk, dairy, and cooked meats. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has supplied people with more than 173,000,000 boxes of fresh food during the pandemic. It's part of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, going strong for a little more than a year. Vilsack says it was only temporary, even though it helped a lot of people.
"There were also some challenges with the program," Vilsack said. "I just got an email from a food bank director with photographs of food that was never delivered and as a result went to waste. There were many examples of that."
Vilsack says the department's going back to the system that was in existence before the pandemic, utilizing food banks and pantries, but they're also taking the best lessons learned from the food box program and incorporating those into their old system. Vilsack says you can expect to hear about changes to current programming in the weeks to come.