Show-Me State of Mind for June 25th, 2008

Rural Missouri Needs Relief From High Gas Prices
High gas prices are devastating our economy. They are making life tougher for everyone, and especially in our small towns, folks are getting strangled. Small towns suffer more during these tough times. In some rural counties, residents spend three times more on gas than those who live in cities or suburbs. The St. Joseph News Press reported recently that the average commute time for Andrew County residents was almost 30 minutes. At that rate, someone in Andrew County pays nearly $200 per month for regular gasoline!
We can't just expect people to stop driving. A woman from Holt County who is on Medicare recently told me that she had to skip a doctor's appointment in Kansas City to treat a degenerative eye disease because she couldn't afford the nearly $35 in gas to make the trip. I wish that this story were uncommon, but it's not. It's just a reminder that the cost of gas affects everything including health care. And the impact on family farms is hitting everyone in the pocket book. Crop prices may be going up, but they are also getting more volatile. With rampant speculation by hedge funds and Wall Street investors, family farmers are caught in the crosshairs of this already rocky market. And with diesel above $4 a gallon and fertilizer 65% more than it was a year ago, our small farmers can barely keep up. These increases in input costs are enough to add $250,000 to the cost of growing 1,000 acres of wheat, much of which cannot be passed onto the consumer.
Congressman Sam Graves talks a lot about his concern for his rural constituents. But the fact is that he has only made things worse. Graves decided long ago that hefty campaign contributions from Exxon and big oil companies were worth more than taking tough stands for the folks back home. Graves has voted again and again to dole out massive taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies and has opposed recent common-sense attempts to redirect those tax breaks to alternative energies. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of business as usual in Washington. We need a representative who will side with us and not the special interests.
Kay Barnes is a candidate for U.S. representative for Missouri's 6th Congressional District