Interview with John Hanson
John Hanson, candidate for the 3rd Congressional District.
John was the senior Ag advisor for Tom Osborne. John has worked with Tom Osborne since Osborne started his political career.
John is 43 and was born in Lexington. He worked for a few years in Omaha in a bank and now resides in the Kearney area. John owns farm land that is both surface irrigated and ground water irrigated and rents it out. John also custom feeds cattle. John resigned his position with Tom Osborne when John announced his candidacy for the congressional seat.
The big issues for John’s campaign are agriculture and economic development. John points out that Nebraska’s 3rd congressional district is one of the largest in the nation and that agriculture makes up at least 70% of the economic activity in the district. Of the 435 congressional districts in the nation, the 3rd district is the number one district for corn sales and the number one district for cattle sales. Agriculture dominates the activity for the district, and John believes that whoever represents the 3rd district needs to have a background in Ag.
Even cities like Grand Island, Kearney and Scottsbluff rely on jobs that are related to agriculture.
John’s goal is to be elected and serve in the Congress for the rest of his life. John has no intention of running for any other seat, such as governor or senate. He hopes to serve on the House Agriculture committee. Within 4 to 6 years, he hopes to be sub-chair; and within 15 years, he hopes to be chair of the House Ag Committee. He doesn’t have any desire to be on any other committee unless it is Ag related, such as the Ag Appropriation Committee.
John knows how the Farm Bill works. He has worked with Osborne in Congress for over 6 years and understands how the system works. He knows the players and knows whom to work with to get things done.
We talked for over an hour about Agriculture and the Farm Bill. John says that the 2007 Farm bill is the key issue for the district. He believes that Agriculture is at a crossroads and that we have three options.
The first being to continue what we are doing now. That is, subsidize agricultural production via more LDP, counter cyclical payments. John believes that is a dead end because it leads to more consolidation and the loss of producers. If this continues, the 3rd Congressional district may disappear after the 2020 census.
The second option is to continue the same path but to bring more money into Agriculture. As the other members of Congress become more urban, it is difficult to find the votes to make that happen. Half of the California delegation can outvote all of the farm state votes.
The third option is to change how Agriculture works. John is a proponent of Whole Farm Revenue Insurance. It is also sometimes referred to as AGR Lite, which stands for Adjusted Gross Revenue – Livestock. It is a program that is used on the east and west coasts. This would shift things away from production-based income and, instead, would guarantee a farmer a percentage of his average revenue.
This stops the USDA from deciding what a farmer will grow. John described in detail how non-program crops are being blocked by the current Farm Bill and how these other crops could bring jobs into the area. John used Chicory, Brown Mustard and Aronia as examples of crops that could not only bring the farmer more money but also create jobs. However, because of the way the Farm Bill works, these crops cannot easily be grown. This is due to penalties if a farmer grows something other than what the government supports, the inability to get insurance, and the lack of certified herbicides.
John has a passion for agriculture. He has grown up around agriculture, and it is what he knows. He believes this qualifies him to be a good representative for the district.
John also loves ethanol. He says, “I will support the continued volumetric subsidies for ethanol. It is good for economic development.” He is also a big fan of a hydrogen reactor that can take grain alcohol and convert it to hydrogen, which can be a very efficient power provider. John is involved with 25/25, which wants to see America get 25% of its power needs from Agriculture by the year 2025.
Many look at agriculture as an industry with problems. John believes that ag may be on the verge of a renaissance. The House Ag committee will decide the future of agriculture, and John wants to be on that committee as it makes its decisions.
We decided that there were other things that people wanted to know about besides agriculture.
Abortion. John is pro life. He believes that life begins at conception. John would permit an exception only if the life of the mother was at risk. He supports adult stem cell research but opposes fetal and embryonic stem cell research.
Health care is a priority for John. He believes there is a lot of duplication on the Federal side of the health care system. Even though there are more critical care access hospitals in the 3rd district than almost any other district in the nation, a veteran must still travel to Omaha to get care instead of being able to go to a local hospital. John would like to see that changed. John would like to see all of the health care financing handled through a single clearinghouse. He says each department has its own system, which creates a lot of unnecessary duplication.
Jon believes in revenue neutrality. That means any idea he has that requires cash must also have a corresponding offset. This keeps the government from growing.
I asked John if he believes in global warming. “Yeah, I do.” He is not comfortable with all of the science on it and does not believe it is a “slam dunk,” but he believes there is reason to be concerned. It is part of the reason that he supports ethanol, hydrogen, and nuclear power.
He believes that any time one talks about economic development in the 3rd district, they must talk about agriculture. This is true even for towns like Grand Island. Many of the jobs in Grand Island are directly related to agriculture. When ag is doing well, the towns grow. When it does poorly, the towns notice.
We talked briefly about water. I asked how John would deal with Lake McConaughy being low. He believes the best way to deal with that is to reform the Environmental Protection Act. He calls it a miserable failure at achieving its intended goals. He feels that because of the Environmental Protection Act, there is a sizable amount of water in McConaughy that could be wasted by Fish and Wildlife if it tries to create a flood during a drought. John believes that whatever the decision is, it is best made at the local level. He also prefers EQIP over CREP, if acres need to be retired.
We talked about the Patriot Act. John feels that this is an issue that he needs to study more. He would probably support it, but knows there are some issues that need to be addressed.
We also talked about immigration. I asked John if the US should build a wall on the border with Mexico. He doesn’t believe a wall is necessary but that we should build a solid, impenetrable fortress. He believes that can be done with technology. I asked why it was necessary. He believes that it is important that we know who is here. John is not anti-immigration and is, in fact, in favor of immigration. However, he does not believe America can afford to have its immigration laws ignored. He prefers to see the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants return to their native country and then cross the border legally. He is willing to increase the number of visas but believes that, at minimum, all immigrants must report to the authorities and go through the proper procedures. John strongly opposes amnesty.
The conversation turned to drugs. John opposes legalizing marijuana and opposes the medicinal use of marijuana as well.
John does support the re-importation of prescription drugs. He feels that drug companies should profit but that when they spend more money on marketing than they do on research, things need to change. He also talked about how making sure people get doctor-prescribed drugs is important and that making those drugs available at an affordable cost can lower the overall cost by preventing things such as strokes. John supports federal subsidies for drugs for low income people.
We talked more about economic development. John supports the creation of a Venture Capital Fund for rural areas. He also supports the idea of taking a small portion of any venture capital fund and putting it into an insurance fund. If a venture capital fund that invests in a rural area loses money, then it can recover some of their investment from the insurance fund. John describes this as being similar to how the FDIC works. The idea would be to encourage venture capital investments in rural areas by lowering the risks for the investor.
John believes that he brings a big advantage to the table. He feels has the institutional knowledge, emphasizing that because he has worked in the halls of Congress for a number of years, it won’t take him 2 years to get up to speed. He says he knows the players, knows who to talk to and what to do to represent the 3rd district.
Tags: John Hanson, Nebraska, Tom Osborne, Congress