By Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. (Kathy Wray Coleman is a 20-year investigative and political journalist and legal reporter who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's Black press)
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
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LANSING,
Michigan – Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11), a Warrensville Heights Democrat who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus of Blacks in Congress, on Friday traveled as a guest of President Barack Obama on Air Force One to Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan for the president's signing of the Agriculture Act of 2014 (the farm bill) into law.
“The Farm Bill Conference Committee, on which I served as Democratic [House Minority] Leader Nancy Pelosi’s appointed representative, worked through immense differences to reach what I believe is a fair and balanced agreement," said Fudge, in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper.
"I am honored to see this effort through to completion with the president’s signature," said the congresswoman, whose majority Black 11th congressional district includes parts of the cities of Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, Cleveland's eastern suburbs of Cuyahoga County, and staggering parts of Summit County, which includes Akron.
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed the $1 trillion farm bill by a vote of 68 to 32, a week after the House of Representatives approved the measure.
Obama had promised to sign the bill into law, and did so willingly on Friday.
The controversial farm bill, that some national labor activists organizations oppose as a now federal law that was passed on the backs of the poor, provides a financial cushion for farmers, sets agricultural policy over a decade, and cuts food stamps to poor families at 1 percent and by $8.6 billion over the next 10 years. It also gives land- grant status to Central State University, Ohio's only publicly funded historically Black university, so it can qualify for additional federal resources.
The average family will lose some $90 a month in food stamps benefits.
"Congress passed a bipartisan bill that is going to make a big difference in communities across the country," said Obama at the signing- of- the- bill ceremony.
Obama said that the bill helps more than farmers.
"Now, despite its name, the farm bill is not just about helping farmers," the president said. "It is a jobs bill, an innovation bill, an infrastructure bill, a research bill, a conservation bill."
Obama also highlighted his rescue of the failing automobile industry, efforts that have paid off as the industry has come roaring back with more manufacturing jobs across the country, including the state of Michigan, and the largely Black city of Detroit and other Michigan cities such as Flint that were disproportionately affected.
A two term president who was reelected in 2012, Obama began his first term in 2009 and soon after began tackling the nation's' manufacturing dilemma, one left from the remnants of the Bush administration, the president has said.
From January 2010 to January 2013 manufacturing jobs in America begin to rise again, roughly by 490,000, data show.
Fudge is a member of the House Agriculture Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight and Nutrition.
Through her committee assignments and as a member of the Farm Bill Conference Committee, the congresswoman has worked to prevent deep cuts to food stamps or what is formally called SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Congressional Democrats have argued that they did all they could to preserve the food stamps program in a climate where congressional Republicans that are the majority in the U.S. Senate were working overtime to dismantle the program altogether.
U.S Sen Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, and both of whom are from Ohio, voted for the bill.
According to the U.S Department of Agriculture about 36 percent of American non-Hispanic Whites, 23 percent of Blacks, and some 15 percent of Hispanics utilize food stamps.
The latest U.S. census reports show that Non-Hispanic Whites make up 63 percent of the U.S., Hispanics, 17 percent, Blacks, 12.3 percent, Asians, 5 percent, and multiracial Americans, 2.4 percent. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
