Make an investment in rural America

As we approach an important election, one of the discussions that I find missing is that of investment. We talk about cutting taxes and immigration, both Democrats and Republicans claim to love free speech except when they are being criticized, and lots of time is spent trying to make us feel fearful, but not nearly enough time is focused on what we are building.

This seems like an especially important consideration for Taylor County voters. Part of the vitality of our country is based on a grand bargain that we don't seem to like to acknowledge. Instead, we seem to get caught up in the 'resentment of others' game.

One of the facts of the USA is that urban/suburban America needs rural America and rural America needs urban/suburban America. This is a complex relationship that can hardly be summed up in a short article, but to overly simplify it, rural communities provide much of the resources (food, energy resources, materials) to power our country, while urban/suburban communities provide the investment (tax dollars) that ensure services to areas that would not be provided by local taxes or businesses alone. We all need each other.

This relationship seems to cause resentment and anger, but it is important to recognize the value of the relationship. Rural broadband is a great example - a capitalist approach would look at Taylor County and, outside of maybe Medford, see no way to earn back the large upfront investment. State and Federal support is critical to ensuring that we have access to high quality internet service. It is a similar story looking at roads, postal service, etc. As a country, we approach these services by looking at what communities deserve, not what makes economic sense. Otherwise, the cost of these services would be much higher in rural communities where you don't have the large population centers to drive competition and bring prices down. It will always be faster and cheaper to deliver 100 pieces of mail in downtown Madison than it is Perkinstown, and it is more economically efficient to build a road that tens of thousands of vehicles drive on per day than hundreds. This is why rural communities consistently receive more tax dollars invested back in our communities than we put into the system. There is a lot of research on this topic, but one local example, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report, showed that in 2015, Milwaukee received $0.66 back for every tax dollar sent to the state. People like to mock Milwaukee, but in that year alone, they provided almost half a billion dollars to support other communities in Wisconsin.

Living in a rural community, we can be proud of our contribution - we are vital to ensuring there is food on grocery shelves, materials for factories, electricity in our power lines. There is no shame, nothing wrong in the bargain being made. However, there is a caution - if we don't recognize the value of the investments being made back, we may find that these investments go away. The US Postal service has lost some of this investment, and service quality in rural areas has diminished. The farm bill is currently being stalled in Congress and, if not passed, this will hurt rural communities the hardest. As you consider this election, I encourage you to consider what you believe should be invested in. Rural communities will never cut their way to thriving.

— Ben Koch, Medford