Tester a real friend to farmers
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Editor,
Susan Lake’s letter (Oct. 17) notes that Sen. Jon Tester is not a “friend of the Farm Bureau,” but Rep. Denny Rehberg is.
Why would a millionaire land developer be a better bet than a guy who actually returns to Montana every weekend to run the family farm?
Perhaps the American Farm Bureau Federation is slightly partisan. On this list of more than 250 legislators, only 7 percent are Democrats.
Tester worked with his Senate colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to get a Farm Bill passed in June. But next door, Rehberg and the Republican-controlled House refused to even schedule a vote on their version of the bill before adjourning for a five-week paid vacation spent wooing the electorate.
Meanwhile, farmers and ranchers across the nation are reeling from a brutal summer of drought and wildfire.
Doesn’t Denny get that?
Maybe that’s why the Billings Gazette, Rehberg’s hometown newspaper, has endorsed his opponent in the race.
“A hard-working moderate, Sen. Jon Tester has accomplished more for Montana in his first term than Rep. Denny Rehberg has in twice that time,” wrote the Gazette on Oct. 21.
Who is a better friend to farmers? The guy who returns to his farm in Big Sandy every week “because number one, I like agriculture.
And number two, it’s grounding to get away from D.C.,” or the guy who topples off his horse during a taxpayer-funded jaunt to Kazakhstan, and spends his spare time golfing with donors and suing Billings firefighters?
We have a clear choice Nov. 6: the mansion rancher who’s “all hat, no cattle,” or the farmer who knows how to plant a crop, drive a combine, fix a tractor and get things done in Washington, D.C.
Kristi Niemeyer
Polson
