Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz made the last stop of his tour around West Texas in Lubbock Friday afternoon.
Local farmers and members of the agriculture community made it their mission to get their voices heard in Congress at the meeting with their elected official.
“I have struggled to feel represented in Washington,” Cotton Farmer Walk Hogood said.
Hogood, as well as, many other local farmers expressed the same concern while experiencing a bad crop season over the last summer.
“Senator Cruz had especially taken a little while to get there, that was a concern to us,” Hogood said. “But I’m really encouraged from what I heard him say today.”
“What Texans want, West Texas and East Texas, the Pan Handle, and the Valley is we want jobs,” Cruz said. “We want more jobs, we want more opportunity, we want wages going up, we want a better future for the next generation.”
A crowded room did not waste the opportunity to discuss farmer insurance and crop protection with the Senator. Because some argue cotton production is the leading industry for the local economy, estimating $12 billion dollars in profit in the region.
“Getting cotton back in the Commodity Title and the Farm Bill is vital,” Meadow Farmers Co-Op’s General Manager Dan Jackson said. “That’s vital for my guys to be able to survive and operate. The insurance program is wonderful, it’s a great safety net. It allows them to go to the bank and borrow money so they can continue to do what they do.”
Title One for cotton, Farm Bill 18, crop protection, and farmer insurance were the main concerns discussed in the meeting Friday.
“I’m focused for cotton farmers, that we can have food and fiber stability and strength,” Cruz said. “Cotton shouldn’t be treated as a second class citizen. It ought to be treated fairly like other crops. So that’s what I’ve been urging the Department of Agriculture to do, urging the administration to do is treat cotton fairly, and also work to tear down barriers to trade.”
The Senator also discussed tax reform, repealing Obama-care, and commented on the recent change in the White House after Steve Bannon was let go from the administration.
“It’s easy for Washington to get consumed by the back and fourth of personalities, by who’s up who’s down, who’s fighting with whom,” Cruz said. “My approach is simply to ignore the political circus and focus on results.”
“In my experience, Texans don’t really care about all the noise and bickering politicians behaving like school children throwing their toys at each other in the sand box,” Cruz added. “Texans are interested in results and so my focus is let’s keep our heads down, let’s role up our sleeves and let’s do what we said we would do.”
