Eastern voice in Western States

[sdgunslinger]

Sheesh Marland.....I don't know where you are coming from with those ideas......I grew up on a sidehill farm and I know better than that . Sure , you can spread fertilizer and replace the trace nutrients you are removing , but when you till up land you are going to do some damage to the soil , maybe though it is very slight every year . I can show you plenty of fields that if , you were to quit farming them tommorrow and sow them down to native grass , would still show the effects of grain farming more than 20 years down the road . I don't doubt I could drive thru your neiborhood and find the same within 15 minutes ......It is also idisputable grazing is much easier on a given piece of land that ripping it up and farming it .....there is a hell of alot of land in the corn belt that should never have been plowed and should have been left in grass .......

As for no one bitching about farming , you've got to be kidding . Maybe you've forgotten some of Ithaca's old topics like Farm and Ranch Welfare , This Terrible Farm Bill and a few others . Any subsidies that the beef industry may get are like a spit in the ocean in comparision to what grain farming gets....

Just wander thru some of these internet boards and you will come up with plenty of threads bitching about farmers...not that I agree with these notions , but for their percentage of the the population , I think unfortunately farmers may be the most bitched about group in the nation .......

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-04-2003 00:36: Message edited by: sdgunslinger ]</font>

 

[Lostagain]

IT="The big difference to me is that the farmers are on their own land, not gummint land.

And there's no way I can see that farmers are destroying their own land the way the welfare ranchers are destroying gummint land."

Are you really this stupid? You don't know that farmers lease land from the gov't to grow crops on?
For someone that thinks he knows everything, you sure don't.

 

[Ithaca 37]

The only info I could find indicates that less then 1/4 of one percent of US farmland is federal and less than 1/2 of one percent is state or local gummint owned. So, it looks like less than 3/4 of one percent of all US farmland is gummint owned.

Lost, You gonna make a big deal out of that?

Maybe you can find figures that show something different.

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-04-2003 19:20: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>

 

[Lostagain]

Look it up.
It is a large amount of acres that are gov't owned but privately farmed. In MT it wouldn't surprise me if the number of gov't acres farmed is near the same number of gov't acres that are grazed.

 

[Ithaca 37]

I did look it up. See my post above this one. I was editing it while you were posting, I guess.

 

[Lostagain]

You asked a MT question then you answered with a US answer. You have a way of twisting things around to suit yourself.

 

[Ithaca 37]

No, I asked you if you knew how much MT farmland was leased from the gummint. I tried to find out but couldn't. All I could find was total US, which was my other question.

I wasn't trying to be deceptive about it and I'm still curious. Since you are the MT expert maybe you can find out how much MT farmland is leased from the Gummint. I don't really care. Total US farmland is good enough for me, and that's what I was origionally referring to:

"The big difference to me is that the farmers are on their own land (or private land), not gummint land.

And there's no way I can see that farmers are destroying their own land the way the welfare ranchers are destroying gummint land."

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-04-2003 20:01: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>

 

[Lostagain]

As you have said if the ranchers were gone then the range would heal itself, you think if the people were gone out of the cities the ground would heal itself? Didn't think so, so the cities are tougher on the ground than cows. All that concrete and asphalt just to make your life more convenient. Not to feed or cloth anyone just for convenience.

 

[MarlandS]

SD, why is it that I can post pure bullshit and get questioned on it and decently argued with , no name calling, or anything that would have been out of line in decent conversation? no need to answer I already know.......

 

[sdgunslinger]

Maybe 'cause you're a nice guy ??

You should put a smiley or some other bullshit warning on your posts if you are not serious though . You had me going there for a while

Are you implying a certain person does not get the same respect ? I can't speak for others , but other than a few mentions of things like "green weenies" ,

, I don't think I have directed any personal attacks at anyone .

 

[Michaelr]

Back to the topic.

We westeners get sick of people from back east and californication.

Agood example are all these polls you hear about, 75% of people polled are in favor of wolf reintro.
How many of those polled have the slightest idea of what it is like here in idaho, the lifestyle, the job market, cost of living, the enviornment, the weather, the traffic, how many burger kings, blah blah blah, I would think that maybe the people on the ground where things happen should be the ones making the decisions. instead we have people who have never seen a mountain, an elk, or a mule deer telling us that the wolf is a good thing. we have people who have never seen a river with clear water telling us how to save salmon, we get people running USFW telling us how to do things that have never worn a pair of wranglers, ect, ect, ect.

I took a month and a half long trip a couple yrs ago and toured the U.S. by auto, I drove from idaho to virginia, up to New York, down through the gulf states, and florida. over through texas, new mex, arizona. had a great time. everybody should do it atleast once.
The one thing I came away thinking after the trip was that YOU FOLKS ON THE EAST COAST CAN KEEP IT!!! Nice to visit once in a lifetime but wouldn't want to live there. everything was so dirty, the rivers stink and are all brown like sewers, the citys are just plain gross, the water tastes like bleach, the traffic is a friggin joke.
SO HELL YES I SAY KEEP YOUR $$$ AND STAY HOME!!!!!, I am quite content to stay here.

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-06-2003 11:59: Message edited by: michaelr ]</font>

 

[1_pointer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> the rivers stink and are all brown like sewers <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
True, but they are brown from silt. The rivers are getting cleaner, the industries and not the 'evironmentalists' are seeing to that.

Having just came West, I can see why many that live here feel the way they do. There's just three statements I want to make:
1. Even if we don't come you still get money from us through taxes.
2. Many of the issues revolve around Federal land.
3. Almost everyone in the West's ancestors came from 'back east' or from California.

 

[Michaelr]

so what is your point with taxes??
do you think I/we don't have to pay them???

 

[dgibson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Besides, I haven't seen anyone whining about the farming yet, except me and Darren and that's from our selfish hunting aspects.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Ding ding!

Mike, the problem with such polls at the one you refer to is that the majority of the population lives in big cities. They haven't a clue as to what life is like in rural Idaho or rural New York, for that matter. They rely on what they're told by the media and by whatever organization they align themselves with. How can they find out for themselves? Go west! But, even then, if they just visit all they get is the tourist side of things, so what have they learned? It still suprises me to hear people who have visited Jackson Hole and/or the tourist sections of Yellowstone and think that that is what the entire west is like.

All that being said, I'm glad you got to see what portions of the east are like. It certainly gives you an appreciation for what you have out there!

 

[dgibson]

And I think the point with taxes is related to the poll thing. The majority of tax money comes from the east and CA, but it's distributed throughout. If the west got the same percentage of federal money that it put in, how much do you think that would be?

 

[Michaelr]

I would hazard a guess that californication gets the lions share of tax monies and that californication is considered part of the west

 

[1_pointer]

My point with the taxes is that most western states get more than they put in due to the lower population density. IN is approx. 1/3 the size of UT, but has 7 times as many people. Western states 'make a profit' off the Easter states.

 

[Michaelr]

Ya and????
the western states are also ALOT larger. there are alot of federal lands to take care of.

If Idaho is getting such a windfall why is the state facing a bad budget defecit??
why did the governor have to implement a hold back on all state agency budgets?
the school budgets were cut by 3 1/2 percent. This was a terrible blow to the public schools, the district I work for had to cut 34 teachers, and numerous support personel. I haven't had a raise in 3 years other than cost of living adjustments of about 1.5%.
So don't give this crap about taxes..

 

[dgibson]

Our state just had to release a lot of "non-violent" prison inmates due to a lack of funds. They just handed them their belongings and said, "farewell!" We didn't get raises this year, either. The last two years we got a so-called cost of living raise that was immediately taken back in insurance increases, and even if it wasn't it wouldn't have been enough to offset the increase in living expenses. My town just "consolidated" two schools, which meant closing them, firing the teachers, and dumping the kids into other already-overcrowded schools. All because they didn't have the money to support them all. Maybe things aren't so great all over, eh?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>the western states are also ALOT larger. there are alot of federal lands to take care of.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>So now we're back to "YOU pay for it, but WE own it."

 

[MarlandS]

I think IL is close to 1 billion in debt why shouldn't we be able to retain our Fed taxes to save our own butts instead of paying for th hiways that run 100 miles between two towns in MT that dont have 1000 people between them? (over simplifiction but you get the idea.)

Lost you quit saying "all easterners and I'll quit wit the "welfare ranchers" I wouldn't have vote to send you guys the wolves , I understand how large our coyote prob is and they ain't near as bad. but now you guys are forced to play the game until you can actually do something about them legally.

SD, now if I had put smilies on would I have fired anyone up??

(gratuitous smilie )