I listened on the radio to both Congressman Rehberg and Senator Tester talk about this and I read about in the Billings Gazette and the HDN about this issue. So let me see if I got this right. In the last year, the Feds have embarked on three separate attacks on Farmers and Ranchers. The first was a trial balloon meant to put all farmers and ranchers on notice that the Department of Transportation feels that anyone pulling a horse trailer should hold a commercial drivers license. Then there are these insane attempts to regulate farm dust and now we see the Department of Labor wants to ban farmers from hiring children. Could we please stop with all this mothering from the Feds? Please? You already tell us that we must drive with our seatbelts, we must watch what we eat, we must buy health insurance, we must only drive cars that the government deems is safe enough or efficient enough. The list goes on and on and on and for many of us, we are sick and tired of being regulated to death.
I grew up working on a farm and ranch here in Montana and I still believe it was one of the most important experiences a kid could have to learn not only how to grow food, but also a traditional work ethic. Those folks in New York bellowing about Wall Street could use a little hard work in my honest opinion. Farming and ranching is a noble profession and one which is crucial to our economy, not only in Montana but for our nation as well. Food continues to be in the top 5 exports for the U.S. whether it is wheat, beef, corn or soybeans, agriculture is by far one of the largest industries the U.S. and certainly for Montana. Not only that, it is one of the few areas of the economy actually performing quite well, so leave it alone!
The President and all of the dwarfs running for President continue to say finding jobs is the most important issue for the upcoming election. Duh! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, yet we might need one to figure our why our government continues to attack our own industries as opposed to trying to help these industries grow and employ more people. It baffles the mind why at this stage in our economy while we continue to hemorrhage jobs, the Feds continue to find ways of destroying more jobs.
So for those keeping score, Montana has three main industries, 1) Agriculture, 2) Energy and 3) Tourism. Obama’s administration has all but attempted to destroy our energy industry by seeking to regulate coal by EPA regulations and Wyoming and North Dakota are kicking our butts on State regulations, now with these attacks on agriculture, how can any Montanan sit idly by and allow this to continue? The bottom line is we all need to write our Congressman and our Senators and send comments to the Department of Labor telling them just how dumb this is. Stop the nanny state right now! We are sick and tired of it. Montana cannot afford to lose anymore jobs or we will go the way of California, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
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