Generosity

I don't know of any industry that receives more generosity during bad weather from the taxpayer than the cattle ranchers in America. Right now there is an airlift of cattle feed going on and it is sponsored by us taxpayers. I am not saying it is the wrong thing to do. I just always marvel at the way these conservative livestock operators often send representatives to state legislatures and the halls of congress to kill all assistance programs for other segments of the population.

With grazing subsidies in the hundreds of millions of dollars on public lands in the west and hundreds of millions more in hidden costs, I would like to see members of the livestock industry just admit that they are being treated very kindly by the rest of us taxpayers. They should think back to the days of Franklin Roosevelt and his formation of the Rural Electrification Administration that helped bring power to America's agricultural and rural communities. If the current philosophy of some of these folks were running the congress back in the 30's they would still be burning coal in their pot belly stoves.