Pence BSs past Trump era's horrid reality for Wisconsin farmers + manufacturers

Both VP candidates were in Wisconsin on Monday. Dem candidate Kamala Harris headed to Milwaukee to discuss a vareity of racial and economic issues, while current VP Mike Pence headed to the other end of the state, and made some sketchy claims about the state's economy.

Speaking at Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse, Pence repeatedly praised President Trump, including his work to replace NAFTA. In doing so, he took a swipe at Harris, who was one of 10 senators who voted against the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement the Trump administration negotiated.

Pence called the deal a win for Wisconsin workers and farmers.

“Here at Dairyland Power, you deserve to know Sen. Harris put their radical environmental agenda ahead of Wisconsin dairy and ahead of Wisconsin power,” Pence said. “But under President Donald Trump, we will always put Wisconsin farmers, Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsin families first.”

I don't know what Pence means by the Harris/Biden "radical environmental agenda" (and I bet Pence doesn't either), but let's take a look at how Wisconsin farmers are being "put first", now that NAFTA 2.0 USMCA has been in effect for more than 6 months.

The reality is that farmers continue to go broke in Wisconsin. In fact, we continue to be Number 1 in America for that notorious stat.

Farm bankruptcies increased 8% over a 12-month period, with 580 filings from June 2019 to June 2020. A six-month comparison, however, shows the number of new Chapter 12 filings slowing. Several contributing factors are likely at play as farmers struggle to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Midwest, Northwest and Southeast were hardest hit, representing 80% of the filings across the U.S. Wisconsin led the nation with 69 filings, followed by 38 in Nebraska. Georgia and Minnesota each had 36 filings.

While the rate of closings for dairy farms has finally slowed in 2020, more than 300 have still gone out of business since the end of last year, and more than 2,300 have gone away since Trump/Pence were elected in 2016.

But what do you expect from an Administration whose Ag Secretary went to the World Dairy Expo in Madison last October and told farmers

"Now what we see, obviously, is economies of scale having happened in America — big get bigger and small go out. ... "Everyone will have to make their own decisions economically whether they can survive. I don't think in America for any small business we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability of survival. That depends on each and every farmer and dairy farmer.
-Sonny Perdue, US Secretary of Agriculture

As for manufacturing jobs, Pence is also wrong/lying. The number of Wisconsinites working in manufacturing peaked in January 2019, had a small decline for the next 13 months, and then plummeted when COVID-19 broke out. A few have come back, but we still have nearly 12,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin today vs when Trump/Pence took office.

Which makes this comment by our needy ex-Governor all the more absurd.

Scott Walker: Wisconsin's agricultural, manufacturing jobs would be 'devastated' under Biden leadership | Fox News https://t.co/TaoPdpMCQL

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) September 8, 2020

Hey Gov Dropout, it can't get much worse than what Wisconsin's farmers and manufacturers are dealing with under Trump/Pence.

These guys are losing bigly, and can't win based on facts, so of course Mike Pence and Pence mini-me Scott Walker are throwing any BS they can against the wall. But you have to be really weak to want to buy the story that these shameless GOP grifters are selling on the economy.