ICYMI: North Country Dairy Farmer Blake Gendebien, Democrat for NY-21, Hosts Town Hall in Johnsburg

Gendebien: “I don’t think we should be preserving tax cuts for the rich and paying for those tax cuts by taking away SNAP, Medicaid, VA benefits, Medicare or Social Security from hard working people. That message wins over anytime.”

Lisbon, NY – This week, dairy farmer and small business owner Blake Gendebien hosted the latest town hall of his campaign to represent NY-21 in Johnsburg.

Speaking with more than 90 community members, Gendebien discussed the latest federal reconciliation bill’s proposed cuts to critical programs like SNAP and Medicaid, protecting veterans’ access to affordable, quality health care, and how his experience as a farmer will help him implement effective immigration reform in Washington. 

On proposed cuts to SNAP benefits: “I can’t think of a better investment than making sure that kids have a healthy meal. I can’t think of a better investment when they need to use their brains for school, when they need to use their muscles to grow and when they want to participate in sports or just gym. How come we [won’t] give them the nutrition they need? On top of that, the SNAP program is an unbelievable benefit to the nation’s farmers.”

On immigration reform: “If you want to have meaningful immigration reform, you have got to have a farmer in the room. Making sure that we can have a legal labor workforce in this country is so important. Yes, we need to secure the border, I agree with that. Yes, we need to get rid of criminals who are illegally with due process, I agree with that. And yes, we need to admit that this country is built on immigrants, and we need immigrants to do all the wonderful things that we want to do, and not having meaningful immigration reform drives costs up.”

On veterans’ health care: “How is it that our veterans don’t have the best health care plan in the world? Why do we debate their health care all the time? It should be a non issue. They should have the best health care in the United States… Rural districts like ours make up to 16% of the nation’s population. That’s it. Just 16% – yet 50% of our military recruits come from districts just like this one, and when they retire, they want to have a healthy VA community center. They want to have a healthy VA hospital.”

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Born and raised on a farm in the North Country, Blake and his wife Carmen have raised their three sons on the Twin Mill Farm in Lisbon, growing the farm to 500 head of cattle. Blake and Carmen also started The Jules of Life Foundation, which provides resources and support to North Country families battling pediatric cancer. For the past 10 years, Blake has served as the Vice Chair of the Cooperative Board of Agri-Mark where he represented the interests of farmers from across the region. He is a former member of the Lisbon Central School Board, and was a longtime junior varsity basketball coach.