The damage will be felt across rural Nebraska and into our cities. There will be few grants to small towns for small business development, educating our young to create jobs through entrepreneurship and other initiatives to grow the economy and build a better future in rural communities. Funding for the Building Entrepreneurial Communities grants was slashed to $150,000 statewide.

Less support will be available for microenterprises, with up to five employees, which create most jobs in rural Nebraska. Funding for loans, business training and technical assistance was cut from $1.5 million to $500,000. Such support earns a high return on investment. Since 1998, it has helped 21,000 existing or prospective businesses in all 93 counties create or retain 12,000 jobs.

In all fairness to legislators, they were dealt a difficult hand with a budget that started out bad and then got worse. The die was cast when the governor proposed these cuts in his budget — arguing that he never intended for earlier increases to be permanent.

Still, as a rural Nebraskan, I can’t help feeling that we don’t get the same priority as our city cousins. When Omaha was in trouble two decades ago, it’s corporate and civic leaders came to the Legislature and won business tax cuts that cost $150 million every year. I don’t begrudge them asking the state to invest in their future. We all have a stake in each other’s prosperity.

But rural Nebraska should receive the same consideration. It should start with three modest but critical investments in the future of rural Nebraska in upcoming legislative sessions.

Restore this year’s cuts in small business development by funding the Microenterprise Partnership Act at its recent level of $1.5 million annually.

Restore grants to rural communities to the recent level of $500,000 annually, and, as demand grows, raise it to $1.5 million. Use a portion of the increase to enable small towns to contract with grant writers to help them use the funds.

Boost tax incentives for microbusinesses and beginning farmers and ranchers by removing the $2 million cap on the Nebraska Advantage Microenterprise Investment Tax Credit.

It provides a one-time 20-percent tax credit on investments up to $50,000. But once $2 million in credits are allocated early in the year, no other small businesses can apply. We don’t cap corporate tax breaks, so why cap the incentive for the small businesses that create most new rural jobs? Removing the cap would cost $10 million annually — about 1/15th the cost of corporate tax breaks.

These are good investments for all Nebraskans. When rural Nebraska prospers, we pay more in state taxes and draw less in state services. But these investments are especially critical for rural Nebraska. Simply put, we must invest in our future if we want to have one.