LABRADOR: Lands o' plenty

So Mr. Labrador went to Washington, and let the country know how not very bright he is. To quote Raul: “The issue in the West that people here in the East don’t understand is that we have, in Idaho it’s over 65 percent of our lands are owned by the federal government.”

Idaho contains 83,570 square miles, of which 35 percent or 29,250 square miles are privately owned. Consider that Massachusetts has only 10,555 total square miles and Rhode Island only 1,545. So what is he whining about? We have approximately two and one-half times as much land on which to live as the residents of Massachusetts. Plus we have many miles of federal lands in which to hunt, hike, camp, pick berries, ride mountain bikes and snowmobiles, cut firewood and Christmas trees. Plus, within reasonable distances, access to Yellowstone, Glacier, Rainier, and Crater Lake National Parks.

We should never ever give away this land that belongs even to the least of us. Yet the “welfare queens,” the Bundys, continue to graze their cattle on public land and even refuse to pay the minimal grazing fee of $1.35 per month for a cow and calf. We non-cow owning taxpayers get to subsidize grazing on public lands at a cost of $125 million a year.

JANET CALLEN

Coeur d’Alene