Every week I check two things at the same time; the cattle markets and the national weather service’s drought monitor. As my uncle Pat once said, “when cattle prices get higher, the sand hills get dryer.” Senator Halloran is from near Hastings. Many of his constituents are row-crop farmers. He told me, “you’ll finally get rain when it doesn’t make any difference.” Just when cattle prices look like they may improve, ranchers are forced to sell because they don’t have the grass to support their herd. Agriculture is Nebraska’s #1 industry and it is struggling. Having a serious drought on top of the highest inflation in over forty-years will be the one-two punch that bankrupts and destroys many family farms and ranches. I pray the rain comes and the hills green up soon. The flood three years ago seems like a long time ago.

I’ve been thinking about the last two years I have in the legislature. Myself and the rest of my class from 2017 are now “senior” senators. I want to continue to focus on the issues that I ran my first campaign on. We made some historic progress this session lowering our out-of-control property taxes that are killing our state, but more must be done. Even with the reductions we passed this year, Nebraska remains in the top ten worst property tax states. More than anything else, this is depopulating our state because fewer people can afford to live here.

We have to find a better way to pay for our K-12 public schools. The formula created in the 1990s we use to fund schools is broken. It picks winners and losers. Of our 244 school districts about 25% of them actually get money from the state. All the rest survive on just property taxes. Some of the districts in western Nebraska receive over 70% of their funding from just property taxes. 

The climate change scam brought us wind turbines and public power boards that think fossil fuel is evil and is destroying the planet. In truth, black sunshine (coal) is clean, safe, reliable, and above all affordable. It doesn’t tear apart rural communities and it doesn’t leave counties holding the bag for the removal of obsolete wind turbines. Without coal-fired electricity in Nebraska, several large towns in the western part of the state would die. I believe the next administration will end the wasteful federal subsidy for wind energy and you won’t see another one built. In the meantime, we have to make sure the tons of industrial waste created by the “renewable” energy scam doesn’t end up buried somewhere in Nebraska.

I hope everyone is registered and participates in our coming elections. Nebraska’s primary election is May 10th. Every two years the people get a chance for their voice to be heard. The people’s only strength is in their number. High turn-out elections always favor the people who decided to show up. Please get out and vote!