When I read U.S. Senator Daines’ op-ed seeking to justify his knee-jerk vote against the American Rescue /COVID-19 Relief Act (which is supported by more than 70% of Americans), he reminds me of the sage who once observed that a certain politician “would try to make you believe that an elephant was really just a mosquito with a gland problem.”
Let me cite just one example. He decries about $5 billion to pay “reparations” to farmers and ranchers that fall into certain minority categories. What he didn’t tell you is that in 1999 the federal courts ordered the Congress to pay up and provide these funds pursuant to a class action lawsuit settlement in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) admitted to blatantly and systematically discriminating against Black farmers for more than a century in the awarding of operating loans and administration of many other USDA programs. Fact is there were nearly one million Black farmers in our country in 1920 and there are less than 50,000 today.
I am uncertain which is more troubling.
Either Daines is willfully ignorant or he has no conscience or sense of injustice.
Bill Goold
Bozeman
Bozeman Daily Chronicle Letter to the Editor 4/24/21