Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean will deliver a speech in rural Grundy County today to sketch out his ideas for revitalizing America’s rural areas. Dean says “agriculture’s a big deal in this country” and he says one of the ways to save small towns is to stabilize the agriculture sector. If elected, Dean would give rural residents the power to block large-scale hog confinements from being built in their neighborhoods and ban packer ownership of livestock. In addition, Dean would extend tax breaks to businesses in rural America. Dean says small businessees are the backbone of rural America, but all the tax breaks in America go to big corporations. Dean says it’s “time for equal opportunity for small businesses” to get federal tax incentives. Dean also wants to make it easier for small businesses to get loans.set aside federal loan money to help small business owners get their hands on capital. Dean says a lot of small businesses can’t borrow money at any interest rate, but students can because they pool their loans and put them on the New York Stock Exchange. That’s the method Dean would use to get more loans for small businesses. As for farm subsidies, Dean says “there’s absolutely nothing wrong” with giving an assurance to small family farmers that there’ll be a government safety net to help them stay in business. He says the problem is too many corporations get federal farm subsidies, and he’d cut those corporate subsidies.