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Too little too late

Ronald Reagan so eloquently said: “The most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I am from the government and I’m here to help.'”

Congressman Collin Peterson and Senator Tina Smith were in town last week meeting with farmers, bankers and farm educators trying to get the ball rolling on Dairy Margin Coverage for small farmers in need of assistance. After reading the article and the companion piece that accompanied it about farm statistical data, I just ask one question. Is this too little too late?

Congressman Peterson, Senator Smith, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar all ran for office under the smoke screen that it was common sense to keep them in office — the great negotiators, the great bipartisan saviors. Now here they are, the white knights soaring down from above, to come to the rescue in time of need. Senator Smith insinuates that it is only now that they see that the perfect storm has come to pass between commodity prices, trade challenges and bad weather.

The companion piece however is much more forthcoming. So much so, that even I, with very little background in commerce but with a whole lot of common sense, can realistically justify that the data was there for those who helped draft this farm bill, and the previous farm bill, and the one before that. Something should have been already up and in place long before now. Then again that is naïve of me because we all know that the Democratic members of congress spent the last two years doing nothing but obstruction.

But what about when Peterson was the head author for many years? We also know that Congressman Peterson was more concerned with not ruffling the feathers of his Canadian trading partners and that it took Donald Trump’s negotiators to finally identify that our farmers have been given a bad trade deal for many years.

We should all pray for our farmers. It is not that they want welfare — they just want to be treated fairly. They want the local, state, and federal governments to give them a fair market deal on trade and taxes, and to give them a chance to pass that life on to their descendants, without the social stigma of mental health concerns.

Carol Johnson is a resident of Hutchinson

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