Needs

What do these guys want?<br />n<br />n<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com//index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/05/14/build/state/40-drought-aid.inc">Ranchers to seek D.C. drought aid</a><br />n<br />nThe headline says they want aid, but you read the article I don't see what aid they are looking for.<br />n<br />n<i>Now they want the federal government to come and listen to them.<br />n<br />nAs a special drought meeting wrapped up at the Stillwater County Courthouse Thursday, more than a dozen ranchers and farmers came to one conclusion: do whatever it takes to get the congressional delegation to Columbus.<br />n<br />n"We need these three guys (Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. Conrad Burns and Rep. Denny Rehberg) sitting right here in our courthouse and everyone can talk to them," said Stillwater County Attorney John Petak. "They owe us that."</i><br />n<br />nIt sounds to me like they just want these guys to come to them so that they can "feel their pain." Sounds very Clintonesque of them to me.<br />n<!–more–><br />nDon't get me wrong, I understand what they are saying. You get a disaster declaration for a drought and it really doesn't do anything to help. It opens up low cost loans from the government. I've looked into these and you can only qualify for them if you can't receive a loan from a more traditional source (i.e. a bank). So they become a lender of last resort during a disaster. At the point of the disaster if you need a lender of last resort you are in deep trouble. Most other programs are the same way. They just don't really help.<br />n<br />nThey are also complaining about having to pay to graze their own Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land. I am going to step on a few toes here, but you got what you asked for. You sign a contract with the Federal Government to set your land aside and now complain that you have to abide by the strictures of the contract. Give me a break. I looked into CRP at one time and decided not to pursue it since it took the land management decisions out of my hands and lodged it with bureaucrats in Washington D.C. If you made a decision to put land in CRP and let other people make decisions on how you can use it I have no sympathy for you. You reap what you sow.<br />n<br />nI don't have a solution to how the government can help get us farmers and ranchers weather this drought. Rescuing us with direct payments to keep us alive from Mother Nature's fury just doesn't seem right to me. Short of that I don't see what they can do, unless they have a secret weather control device they can turn on and make it rain. Now that really sounds like a plan.<br />n<br />n<b>The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. Milton Friedman</b>