FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
CONTACT: press@iowademocrats.org
Mike Pence Can’t Defend Trump’s Economic Record
DES MOINES — Mike Pence is heading to Iowa this week, but nothing he says can change the economic disaster he and Donald Trump have created for Iowans. From Trump’s chaotic trade policies that cost Iowa farmers billions, to their failed coronavirus response that has left hundreds of thousands of Iowans out of work, the Trump-Pence economic agenda has worked for the wealthy and well-connected while leaving farmers, ranchers, and small businesses owners to fend for themselves. Rather than waste Iowans time with a political photo op, Pence should do his job and work on a solution to this urgent economic crisis. Iowans deserve better.
Trump this week reiterated his threats to slash Social Security by putting forward a plan to permanently slash the funding to the program that over 600,000 Iowans depend upon every day.
CNN: “If he’s reelected, Trump said, he plans to forgive the taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll taxes.”
Iowa Public Radio: “Payroll taxes fund Medicare and Social Security, and this deferral won’t do anything to help the millions of Americans currently unemployed.”
A year ago, Trump promised farmers they were “over the hump” – and yet the economic situation for farms across Iowa has only gotten worse on his watch as Trump’s ineffective coronavirus response left small family farms behind and his chaotic trade policies failed to live up to his promises.
Trump: “Some of the farmers are doing well … We’re over the hump. We’re doing really well.”
NBC News: “Small farmers left behind in Trump administration’s COVID-19 relief package.”
Reuters: “By end-May, imports were running behind 2017 levels – rather than 50% ahead as needed… scorching levels of buying would be needed to hit the mark. Add in a rapid deterioration in U.S.-China relations, an upcoming U.S. election, a global pandemic and questions over just how much soybeans China actually needs, and farmers and analysts say it may be a stretch too far.”
Associated Press: “Chinese purchases of American farm goods, semiconductors and other goods declined 11.4% last year but still exceeded $100 billion. Exports to China support just under 1 million American jobs, according to the U.S.-China Business Council, though that was down 10% from 2017’s peak.”
Trump’s ineffective coronavirus response also forced open meatpacking plants that lead to over 2,000 sick Iowa workers – including workers at the Tyson plant in Perry, 40 miles from where Pence will attend a private dinner with the state GOP.
Washington Post: “Coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants across the Midwest have sickened thousands of workers — including more than 2,000 in Iowa, where at least four major plants were forced to temporarily close.”
Des Moines Register: “The first confirmed coronavirus outbreak at an Iowa meatpacking plant was far more severe than previously known, with more than twice as many workers becoming infected than the state Department of Public Health told the public, newly released records show.”
Newsweek: “The Tyson Foods plants in Columbus Junction, Perry and Waterloo as well as two other workplaces were confirmed to have outbreaks, the IDPH’s deputy director, Sarah Reisetter, said at the May news briefing.”
On top of bearing the brunt of Trump’s failed coronavirus response, Trump’s EPA has undercut Iowa’s largest economy by giving handouts to Big Oil companies at the cost of farmers and energy producers.
Northwest IA News: “Along with the shut down from the pandemic in March and April, the company also had a three-week shut down in September due to the Trump Administration’s approval of SRE waivers.”
IA Capital Dispatch: “In Iowa, at least 10 of the 43 plants had completely shut down at some point during the COVID-19 pandemic and others had limited production. Travel has picked up some in recent weeks.”
Des Moines Register: “Prices have tumbled for Iowa corn, soybeans, pork, beef, milk and eggs. And demand for ethanol, which consumes much of Iowa’s annual corn crop, has plummeted along with oil consumption, as Americans have put the brakes on travel.”