John Delaney talking to a group of Greene County farmers

A Democratic presidential candidate made his third trip of 2019 to Greene County on Tuesday.

Former U.S. Congressman John Delaney from Maryland spoke to a group of farmers and agriculture professionals at David Weaver’s farm in Rippey. He said he comes from a rural congressional district in Maryland when he ran for Congress. He said he learned how to find common ground with everyone in his district, which he won in 2012 and unseated a Republican, which that party held the congressional seat for 20 years. 

Delaney wants to see America be in the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a solution to the trade issues with China. He said the TPP would open more markets for trading and allow America to compete with other countries against China. He also talked about what he refers to as the number one issue for Americans, and that is healthcare. Delaney spoke about the healthcare issues that need to be fixed.

“What we have is what I call, ‘the tragedy of uninsured Americans.’ There’s millions of Americans who don’t have any coverage and we need to get them coverage. We need to do things to make sure we’re investing in innovation because we have to effectively cure some of these big diseases like Alzhemier’s and cancer that are wrecking families and costing us huge amounts of money. We need to do things to ensure that quality of healthcare is more evenly distributed. But what we don’t need to do is throw the whole system out. We should absolutely make sure every American has healthcare as a human right. But that doesn’t mean that the best way to get there is to cause an entire uphelve of the entire U.S. healthcare system. That’s a terrible idea.”

Delaney touched on having more regulations for water quality, running on realistic ideas, infrastructure, strengthening gun safety measures and giving high school graduates the opportunity for community service and provide incentives like scholarships to do different projects.