Marcy Kaptur is a failure — at least by her admission.
While discussing efforts to bolster domestic production and displace foreign imports, the 22-term Democratic congresswoman from Northwest Ohio candidly assessed her efforts to date—and they’ve apparently been one failure after another.
“I just wish to say also that for 30 years I’ve been working to do this and have failed and failed and failed and failed, but for two little programs that they changed the name of over at [the United States Department of Agriculture],” Kaptur said at an Agricultural, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee markup.
Kaptur, who served as an urban policy advisor during Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s one term in office, said one of the programs she referenced was called the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program. At the same time, the other was named the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program. The latter program allowed seniors and different purchasers to visit local farmers’ markets and buy fruits and vegetables.
“And USDA changed the name—they changed the name from the Farmers Market Nutrition Program to the School Nutrition Program and to the Senior Nutrition Program,” Kaptur said. “And then a year ago in Ohio, what they did was they forced all of our producers to buy electronic technology. Well, guess what? When you’re a farmer and you’re not in a broadband area, it doesn’t work. So what they did was they killed half the people’s participation in the program.”
Like many members of Congress, Kaptur has trumpeted millions in federal tax dollars for rural broadband initiatives. The funding has generally been met with mixed results.
Kaptur, who has been in office for over 40 years, has been on the National Republican Congressional Committee's target list. Picking off Kaptur’s district would turn Ohio, which has become reliably Republican in recent years, further to the right.
Republican insiders note that President Donald Trump won her district in 2024 by 25,000 votes. Kaptur won a hotly contested reelection last year in what Politico called “one of the most closely contested House races.”
On Tuesday, NRCC spokesman Zach Bannon stated that he considers Kaptur's legislative days numbered.
“Marcy Kaptur’s words speak for themselves: she has failed and failed and failed and failed,” Bannon said. “The people of Northwest Ohio are ready for change, and Kaptur will lose her seat next fall.”
Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House, acknowledged her “failures” during remarks supporting an amendment. She also acknowledged the openness of U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Maryland, an original member of the House Freedom Caucus, to try to displace imports with domestic production.
“I go by the motto: ‘What America makes and grows makes and grows America,’ and we forgot that for about 50 years. Okay, so we got a lot of cleanup to do in agriculture,” Kaptur said.
“This program will pay for itself because if we buy from local producers and the people go into these little farmers markets—150 just in northwest Ohio—the prices there are better than the supermarkets,” Kaptur said. “So the savings is in who we buy from. I know they always say ‘volume, volume, volume, volume,’ but locally, who they’re in competition with, they always reduce prices because they’re an individual entrepreneur. They’re family.”
Most measures show that the country is producing less of its own food, particularly fruits, making it more reliant on imports.
The Toledo native said it’s “not an easy journey to displace foreign production with U.S. production, but believe me, it’s in the American people’s interest.”
“We have to restore the inventiveness and the entrepreneurship of America,” Kaptur added.
