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Ted Cruz Adresses Issues About How to Get Young People in Farming

1,194 views · Published 25 September 2015 · 4:18 · Indexed 12 November 2026

Channel: RFD-TV · 2015 · Entertainment

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Q: "My name is Kim Norvell. I’m a reporter with the Des Moines Register and Gannett Company. What is your vision for the future of American agriculture and what would you do to help young people get into farming"

A: Ted Cruz: "Look, we need to get back to an environment where the economy is booming. If you look, my top priority is economic growth, because growth is foundational to everything else. You look at every other challenge we’ve got, whether it’s unemployment, whether it’s dealing with the debt and the deficit, whether it is rebuilding our military, whether it’s improving and strengthening Social Security and Medicare. With growth, we can do all of that. Without growth, we can’t do any of it. Growth is foundational. If you look historically in this country, the economy has grown historically since World War II, about 3.3% a year. There were only two four-year periods where growth averaged less than 1% a year: 1978-1982, coming out of Jimmy Carter and 2008-2012, where growth averaged 0.9% a year. If you wanna turn things around, we’ve gotta get back to the booming economic growth that has characterized America historically, get back to 3, 4, 5% growth. Suddenly everything turns around. Suddenly for farmers and ranchers you’ve got booming demand. You’ve got more opportunity.  You’ve got capital available. You’ve got much more – many more avenues that are open. Now how do you get there? You know, if you look at cause and effect, every time we go down the road of out-of-control spending and taxes and regulation, the result has been stagnation and misery and malaise. It doesn’t work. I, you know, it’s, it’s amazing. Those ideas consistently lead to failure. But on the flip side, we know what works. Every time we pursue tax reform and regulatory reform, every time we reduce the burdens from Washington on small businesses, on farmers, on ranchers, on people who are struggling but are creating jobs, the result has been incredible economic growth. We saw that in the 1920s under Calvin Coolidge. We saw it in the 1960s under JFK. Ironically, JFK was a big tax cutter, something the Democrats – if JFK were alive today, he’d be a Republican because he’d be thrown out of the Democratic party. And we saw it in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. You know, it’s amazing. You look at the last four-year period of stagnant growth.  Reagan comes in 1980 and what does he do? He pursues tax reform and regulatory reform. He cuts the top marginal tax rate from 70% down to 28%, dramatically simplifies the tax code, reduces the regulations that are strangling farmers and ranchers and small businesses. You know what economic growth was in 1984, the 4th year of Reagan’s presidency? 7.2.

Booming growth. What does that mean? What does that translate into? Millions being lifted out of poverty into prosperity, having an avenue towards the American Dream. You know, you look at young people now. Young people coming out of school – tragically, economists are referring to this generation of young people as a lost generation, because for six and a half years, young people come out of school and there are no job opportunities.  They’ve got student loans up to their eyeballs. They’re scared. “Am I gonna get a job?  If I do get a job, is it going to be anything where I get skills? Can I work towards a career or is it gonna be a part-time job that’ll last just a little while?” And if we get back to booming growth, what that means for young people is you have two, three, four job opportunities across the spectrum of whatever field.  If it’s in agriculture, if it’s in technology, if it’s in whatever your passion is...that’s how you turn things around. We know how to do it if we just get back to the common-sense principles that work.

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