The Welfare Cattle Empire That Controls Your Public Lands: article

[307]

Sounds like some pretty lousy grazing land...

Yeah, it is. That’s why it leases cheap. You need a lot of desert to feed a cow.

 

[MtnW]

Yeah, it is. That’s why it leases cheap. You need a lot of desert to feed a cow.

You have missed the point. It’s a major scam. The system pays out more to these corrupt billionaires than it takes in. This affords these billionaires 10’s if not 100’s of millions of tax write offs

 

[Baddog]

If you want to convince me the government shouldn’t be subsidizing anyone, I’m probably an easy sell. However if we are gunna subsidize damn near everything in this country food should probably be on the list.
I often hear this argument how getting rid of cows would make wildlife flourish but I don’t buy it. Most of these cow leases on public are on summer range and deer and elk aren’t starving to death on the summer ranges. You could pull all of the cows off public land and in 10 years time there’s no more deer or elk and in spots there’s going to be less because the ranchers have developed water sources and maintain that infrastructure and it would disappear.

 

[fragment]

This is why it is public land, in general, and wasn't sold. Hal Herring, while I don't a ton about the guy, showed up on The Prairie Farm podcast and spoke to some history of the Taylor Grazing Act and it seems like most of the patchwork of the western lands are simply because it IS terrible grazing land. Since you couldn't make a living on it, it was never homesteaded by any of the homestead acts, and was slowly taken over as cheap lease land by adjoining landowners. He seems like he's spent a lot of time and seems knowledgeable about the topic.

He's apparently got a book coming out soon that goes into detail on the history of the homestead acts and the grazing acts that created this mess. I will be reading it.

 

[MtnW]

All for the family ranches and grazing leases as long as they do not monetize the public’s wildlife.
This is more about the mega ranches controlled by billionaires for massive tax write offs and subsidies while bastardizing our public lands, monetizing our wildlife, and using these vast amounts of public lands for their own private hunting/fishing estates locking out the public from their own land

 

[MTBackroads]

All for the family ranches and grazing leases as long as they do not monetize the public’s wildlife.
This is more about the mega ranches controlled by billionaires for massive tax write offs and subsidies while bastardizing our public lands, monetizing our wildlife, and using these vast amounts of public lands for their own private hunting/fishing estates locking out the public from their own land

Sounds like the RMEF and the APR.

 

[StupidLightweight]

Fascinating article…