Tom Vilsack famous quotes

One out of every 12 jobs in the economy is connected in some way, shape or form to what happens on the farm.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Jobs #Shapes #Way

The rise of childhood obesity has placed the health of an entire generation at risk.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Childhood #Risk #Generations

In the past 40 years, the United States lost more than a million farmers and ranchers. Many of our farmers are aging. Today, only nine percent of family farm income comes from farming, and more and more of our farmers are looking elsewhere for their primary source of income.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Past #Years #Income

People don't understand rural America. Sixteen percent of our population is rural, but 40 percent of our military is rural. I don't believe that's because of a lack of opportunity in rural America. I believe that's because if you grow up in rural America, you know you can't just keep taking from the land. You've got to give something back.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Growing Up #Military #Believe

This is an exciting time for farmers and ranchers of all types and sizes as agriculture is a bright spot in the American economy. In 2011, agricultural exports hit a record high and producers saw their best incomes in nearly 40 years.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Years #Agriculture #Income

But It doesn't make sense for us to have a continued reliance on a supply of oil where whenever there is unrest in another part of the world, gasoline prices jump up. We need a renewable fuel industry that's more than corn-based, of course, and there are a whole series of great opportunities here.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Opportunity #Oil #Unrest

If we truly want an innovative and creative renewable fuel industry, then it needs to be challenged. And if we create a set of protections that allow it to not be as creative and innovative as possible, then we aren't doing a service to the industry or to the people of this country.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Country #People #Creative

I think we all share the same goal, which is a United States of America that inspires people and leads.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Thinking #America #Goal

In 2011, agricultural exports hit a record high and producers saw their best incomes in nearly 40 years.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Years #Records #Saws

Local and regional food systems are about opportunity.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Opportunity

Many young and beginning farmers start out in local markets. Some stay there, and some scale up.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Young #Scales #Farmers

More than half of America's rural counties are losing population and with it, political representation.
-- Tom Vilsack

#America #Political #Half

The food pyramid is very complicated. It doesn't give you as much info in a quick glance as the plate does.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Pyramids #Giving #Doe

The Obama administration will continue to fight for a comprehensive immigration solution that includes AgJobs and a stable workforce for our farms.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Fighting #Administration #Immigration

There is more potential for economic growth in rural America than at any time in decades.
-- Tom Vilsack

#America #Growth #Economic

I grew up in a city. My parents would think there was something wrong with America if they knew I was secretary of agriculture.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Thinking #Cities #Agriculture

I don't think the face of the Democratic Party is Nancy Pelosi.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Party #Thinking #Faces

And sometimes people don't realize that 90 percent of the persistent poverty counties are located in rural America.
-- Tom Vilsack

#America #People #Poverty

If we can get people to focus on fruits and vegetables and more healthy foods, we'll be better in terms of our healthcare situation.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Vegetables #People #Focus

Proper school nutrition must be complemented by activities outside of the cafeteria. The decisions parents make to keep their kids healthy are critical in fighting this battle on the home front.
-- Tom Vilsack

#School #Kids #Home

If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Dance #Prayer #Rain

Rural Americans want leaders who help middle-class communities to plan and prosper over the long-term - not opportunists who reap the rewards for themselves, leaving nothing for the people who do the sowing.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Class #People #Long

The lack of access to proper nutrition is not only fueling obesity, it is leading to food insecurity and hunger among our children.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Children #Insecurity #Nutrition

At President Obama's direction, the U.S Department of Agriculture is working hard to unleash the power of America's innovators and entrepreneurs to build a green energy economy.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Work #Agriculture #America

I wish I could give you all the examples over the last two years as secretary of agriculture, where I hear people in rural America constantly being criticized, without any expression of appreciation for what they do do.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Appreciation #Expression #Years

President Obama's fight for rural America is personal. He was raised by a single mom and grandparents from Kansas. He hails from a farming state, Illinois.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Mom #Fighting #Kansas

Somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the food you eat has been touched by immigrant hands, and it is fair to say some of them are not here as they should be here. But if you didn't have these folks, you would be spending a lot more - three, four or five times more - for food, or we would have to import food and have all the food security risks.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Hands #Risk #Three

You know, this country today, it seems to me--it's about fear. And it shouldn't be about fear. It should be about hope and optimism and creativity and accepting a challenge and being a moral leader and being a great nation.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Country #Creativity #America

Americans ... want leaders who share their values, understand their needs, and respect their intelligence.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Leader #Want #Needs

During a national crisis, we as a nation become a single community and no one should take advantage of a crisis.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Community #Advantage #Should

What Republicans have done in my view is that they are systematically dismantling a sense of community in America.
-- Tom Vilsack

#America #Views #Community

Quality, affordable housing is a key element of a strong and secure Iowa.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Strong #Iowa #Keys

Let us tackle the big issues with bold ideas that transform Iowa to accomplish our shared mission to grow Iowa, and realize our shared vision of Iowa as the best place to live, work and raise a family.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Iowa #Ideas #Issues

Strong communities ... embrace change. New discoveries require us to think differently and approach things differently, to think anew.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Change #Strong #Thinking

People working together in a strong community with a shared goal and a common purpose can make the impossible possible.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Teamwork #Strong #Goal

We should also challenge this country to come up with strategies and technologies that allow us to produce nuclear energy without necessarily producing a byproduct that can be converted to something far more dangerous. I believe that can be done. It may not be done tomorrow, but it clearly needs to be worked on.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Country #Believe #Technology

If we are to transition to a new economy and to lead it, we must start by transforming our schools.
-- Tom Vilsack

#School #Transition #Economy

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Small Business #Economy

It's how you make decisions that matters, and that ought to be the question that people ask of any candidate for any executive office, whether it's mayor, governor or president. How do you make decisions? Who do you want in the room helping you make those decisions?
-- Tom Vilsack

#Office #People #Decision

There are children with dreams counting on us.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Dream #Children #Counting

To keep farmers on the farm we must maintain a strong farm safety net, but we will also have to build a thriving companion economy to compliment production agriculture in rural America.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Strong #Agriculture #America

The future of healthcare security should include flexibility from the federal government to allow us to serve the state's most vulnerable citizens.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Government #Citizens #Healthcare

My friends, history, history calls us to this time and to this place. A solemn choice rests with us - where do we go from here? Do we move slowly and incrementally? Or do we seize the challenge of our time and tackle the great issues of our day.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Friends #Moving #Issues

Food during my early years was a very difficult issue for me. I grew up in an addictive family. My mother had serious problems with alcohol and prescription drugs. I was an overweight kid. I can remember back in those days there weren't the strategies that there are today to deal with those issues.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Mother #Kids #Years

In his first year in office, President Obama pulled us back from the brink of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and worked to lay a new foundation for economic growth. The president identified three key strategies to build that lasting prosperity: innovation, investment, and education.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Keys #Years #Office

Over the past two years, the Obama Administration and USDA have worked to build a foundation for sustainable economic growth in rural America. At the center of our vision is an effort to increase domestic production and use of renewable energy.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Past #Years #Two

President Obama has expressed his commitment to responsible stewardship of our land, water, and other natural resources. And one way of restoring the land to its natural condition is what we are doing here today - breaking pavement for the People's Garden.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Commitment #Garden #Land

To amplify our efforts, USDA is joining with First Lady Michelle Obama in aggressively promoting the 'Let's Move' campaign, which will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Moving #Epidemics #Effort

To help producers serve larger institutional customers like schools and hospitals, USDA has helped fund new regional infrastructure like cold storage warehouses, commercial kitchens and local slaughter facilities.
-- Tom Vilsack

#School #Kitchen #Helping

Today, President Obama is making smart investments in clean energy - wind, solar, biofuels - as part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy that supports thousands of jobs, not in the Middle East, but in the Midwest.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Jobs #Smart #Wind

I can't give you a specific number today, in large part because the analysis upon which we would make that determination has not been completed. . . . I think it is fair to say there may be additional costs associated with a farming operation, but it is very difficult to quantify.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Determination #Thinking #Numbers

There are a lot of farmers and ranchers who are struggling. I get on my knees every day. If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Dance #Prayer #Struggle

Although they are some of the hardest working folks I know, rural Americans earn, on average, $11,000 less than their urban counterparts each year. And they are more likely to live in poverty.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Average #Years #Poverty

When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be reconnected and re-engaged in society.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Needs #Debt

We have a long tradition in this state of caring for our neighbors - it is truly an Iowa value.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Caring #Iowa #Long

A healthy workforce is essential to grow our state and compete in the global marketplace. These actions are important to improve the health security of Iowans by making healthcare more affordable and accessible.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Healthy #Important #Essentials

Now our job, our duty, our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our citizens cannot be complete unless we guarantee health care security for our citizens.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Jobs #Responsibility #Safety

Democrats have always historically referred to our families as working families, and I have sort of changed that moniker. I think what we have is a nation of worried families - families that are concerned about job security, families who thought their pensions were secure and now have questions.
-- Tom Vilsack

#Jobs #Thinking #Worried