Install
Farms & Rural America blog
Kelo v. New London and the Backlash That Reached Statehouses NationwideA 5-4 ruling let a city take homes for a private development plan. The anger that followed rewrote property laws in state after state.Four Farm Families, Four Ways to Hand the Land to the Next GenerationPassing on a farm is about fairness among heirs as much as taxes. Four hypothetical households show the trade-offs, with the arithmetic.Does Your Farm Owe Estate Tax? A Worksheet You Can Run at the Kitchen TableMost farm families owe no estate tax, but land-rich, cash-poor operations can. A step-by-step worksheet with a labelled hypothetical example.Eleven Questions About Why Small-Town Hospitals Struggle and What HelpsLow volume, high fixed costs and a payer mix tied to Medicare and Medicaid squeeze rural hospitals. Eleven questions on the policy tools.Light Came First, and What Rural Electrification Teaches About BroadbandPrivate utilities would not wire the farms, so farmers built co-ops with federal loans. The story is the best template for the broadband gap.A Survey Crew Is on Your Land, So Here Is Your Pipeline PlaybookWhen a company wants an easement for a pipeline or power line, the landowner who knows the process gets the better deal. Here are the steps.H-1B, H-2A and H-2B, What Each Work Visa Does and Who Can Use ItThree temporary work visas, three different rules. A table of caps, wages and who qualifies, and where conservatives disagree about each one.The Takings Clause in Four Cases Every Landowner Should KnowOne sentence in the Fifth Amendment protects your land from being taken without pay. Four Supreme Court cases show what that sentence covers.Kelo v. New London and the Backlash That Rewrote State LawIn 2005 the Supreme Court let a city seize homes for private development, and voters of both parties made it the most unpopular ruling in years.How a Backyard Lot and a Farm Pond Became Federal Waters, Then Didn'tA dated timeline of the fight over "waters of the United States," from 1972 to the Supreme Court's return to the text in 2023.First in Time, First in Right, and How Western Water Law Really WorksIn the arid West water is property, and the oldest claim gets served first. Here is how that rule shapes every ranch, farm and town.The Sagebrush Rebellion and the Westerners Who Wanted Their Land BackIn 1979 and 1980 Western states sued for their own backyards, lost in court, and still moved the Republican Party. Here is the whole story.A Farmer's Wheat Crop and the Long Fight Over the Commerce ClauseA farmer fed his own chickens with his own wheat and lost at the Supreme Court. Nine cases from 1824 to 2012 show how federal power grew and where it stopped.Who Owns the Range? Grazing Permits, Allotments and the Rancher's Real RightsWestern ranchers graze cattle on land they do not own. Here is what a permit is, what it is not, and why the paper decides the value of the ranch.Embargo, Volcker and Foreclosure Is What Really Caused the 1980s Farm CrisisThe 1980s farm crisis was a debt crisis, not one villain. A tour from the 1970s land boom through the embargo and the Fed to the 1987 credit act.Eight Myths About Farm Subsidies That Both Parties Keep RepeatingThe left and the right argue about farm programs with slogans. Eight claims tested against how the farm bill is built and what USDA itself reports.Hail Hits Your Wheat Field and a Crop Insurance Claim Moves to a CheckA labelled hypothetical walks a wheat grower from policy purchase to indemnity check, with the law, the players, the deadlines and the arithmetic in order.Why Food Stamps Live in the Farm Bill and Whether That Marriage Should LastA 1970s vote-trading deal put food aid and farm subsidies in one bill. Here is how it happened, the best case on each side, and a verdict on whether to divorce.From the 1933 Farm Act to Freedom to Farm, How the Safety Net Got BuiltFarm programs began as Depression emergency measures and survived because nobody could end them. Here is the story from 1933 to 2014 and who pushed which way.The 1937 tax that gun owners backed and that rebuilt America's wildlifeThe Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 is a user-pays success: an excise tax on guns and ammunition that sportsmen asked for and that funds state wildlife agencies.Corn, Refiners and the Republican Family Feud Over EthanolFarmers and refiners both claim the free-market banner in the ethanol fight. Here is how the mandate works and what a consistent conservative should want.Six Laws Passed in 1862 by a Republican Congress That Still Shape AmericaA checklist of six 1862 laws, from homesteads to the greenback, with the reason for each, what it did for a farmer, student and worker, and the critics' case.What the 1860 Republican Platform Promised Compared With What Democrats OfferedThe 1860 Republican platform was a full program, not one issue. A side-by-side table shows how it differed from the split Democrats, plank by plank.Who Owns the Oil Under Your Farm, and Why America Answers DifferentlyIn America a landowner can own the minerals under the surface, which is why farm families became oil and gas partners, and how to read the lease.Abraham Lincoln ran a party of free soil, free labor and free menLincoln's Republicans were an opportunity party as much as an antislavery one, and the laws of 1862 show the agenda that still shapes the American dream.