Opinion

Dear Editor, Each year over $130 million dollars flows into Nebraska’s rural communities to help thousands of farmers and ranchers implement conservation practices on working lands. These voluntary, incentivebased programs conserve our precious soil and water resources and make Nebraska one of the most productive crop and livestock producing states.

A one-size-fits-all approach that puts Washington in charge of Americans’ personal health and child care decisions is dangerous, especially in the wake of a global pandemic. Americans continue to struggle with unaffordable coverage, yet President Biden’s budget does nothing to actually lower health care costs. This week, the Ways and Means Committee held a hearing with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra to ask important questions about the President’s health care proposal.

The posturing has begun and the Republican field for the governor's race in 2022 is already crowded. Sides have been chosen.

Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers share a special connection to the land and water they use to grow the food that feeds the world. They cultivate the rich soil of the Great Plains and graze cattle across the rolling Sandhills. Many families have worked the same land for generations. It’s their work ethic and stewardship that have helped make Nebraska number one in the nation for agricultural production per capita.

After 2019’s historic flooding, it would have been easy to lose hope. So many Nebraskans lost their belongings, their livelihoods, and even their homes to what seemed like endless waves of water and ice. All told, the floods of that spring cost us four lives and over $3 billion in damage.

This past session, a number of good bills failed to pass. LB364 is a bill from Senator Lou Ann Linehan called the Opportunity Scholarship Act. Senator Linehan and I both came into the Legislature in 2017. She introduces this bill every session. In her bill, individual and corporate taxpayers would qualify for a non-refundable tax credit equal to the amount the taxpayer contributed to a scholarship-granting organization. No taxpayer would receive a tax credit exceeding 50 percent of their state income tax. The idea is pretty simple. Nebraskans could donate money to a scholarship-granting organization and lower their income tax liability a little. Low income families with children in a public school would have the option to apply for a grant to send their kids to a private school.

Our national and global economy rely on the efficacy of supply chains. Supply chains are found in every industry, sector, and market, and include all actors involved in creating and bringing a product from start to finish. Farmers and ranchers, manufacturing facilities, retail, and the transportation in between, are all critical to the success of this multi-pronged system. Over the course of the last year we have seen just how much we as consumers have taken for granted supply chains and the logistics behind them. The resiliency of our supply chains impact more than just the producers and manufacturers creating the goods and transporting them to their final destination, it also impacts the price and availability of the product for consumers.

Last week, the Legislature wrapped up one of its most productive sessions in history. With almost 700 bills under consideration, senators and I successfully worked together to control spending growth, deliver tax relief, invest in broadband infrastructure, and expand educational opportunities among several other key priorities. Here are a few of the highlights from a historic legislative session that helped move our state forward the Nebraska way.

With another regular session of the Nebraska Legislature in the books, let’s look at the impact of their actions on the state’s General Fund. The headlines have focused on: $1.4 billion in cumulative property tax relief that has been offered over several years; $20 million set aside for statewide broadband expansion and another $15 million designated for preliminaries to building a new state prison.

If you care about sustainability, I have good news: There are proven ways to make traditional energy better for the environment. Gasoline mixed with ethanol has been shown to burn cleaner than normal gas, and corn-based ethanol lowers gasoline’s greenhouse gas emissions by 46 percent.