State Sen. Jennifer Fielder’s recent guest column (Jan. 28 Beacon: “Why the Oregon Uprising?”) reads like a classic Marx Brothers movie script; little reality, with a heaping dose of insanity. The beauty in it is that none of these characters she speaks of, including herself, would be where they are without the federal largess propping up their respective states, and therefore giving them employment. During the last election cycle, Chuck Johnson, former chief of the Lee Newspapers state bureau, pointed out during the Montana U.S. Senate debate that for every $1 Montana sends to D.C., we get $1.92 in return. Yes, my fellow comrades here in Montana, and all the other western red states, no matter who you may align with politically, we’re all welfare babies living the delusional rugged independent dream. From our federally subsidized highways, dams, grazing lands, electricity, airports, forests, national parks, fisheries, etc., we couldn’t survive a year without tens of millions people laboring at their jobs and paying their taxes, then sending it to us through the conduit of D.C., so we can hire the likes of the Fielders of the world to tell us just how bad we have it, because of a reckless government.
Like the great Groucho once said, ”Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
s
Hot Springs