Byron Dorgan: “the legislation we have introduced is the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. The President pro tempore will…”

“the legislation we have introduced is the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. The President pro tempore will remember well the old Homestead Act in this country. We decided to try to populate the middle of this country well over a century ago by offering land to people who would move to the center of the country and work to improve the land. They would start a farm, start a family, and the Federal Government would give them 160 acres of land. That was called the Homestead Act. Let me describe what has happened to the middle part of our country in the last 50 years or so and why there is a need for a new Homestead Act now. No, it is not to give land away, because we don't have more land to give away, but to develop unique and different approaches through a New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. This is a map of the United States of America. The red areas on this map are the rural counties that have lost at least 10 percent of their population over the last 20 years. All of these red areas are rural counties that have lost more than 10 percent of their population. You will see almost an egg shape in the middle of America. The middle part of America is being depopulated. People are leaving. Our rural counties are shrinking. If you are trying to do business in one of these rural counties, you are in very big trouble; you are trying to do business in a recession and have been for some long while. My home county is bigger than the State of Rhode Island.”