Protecting the rancher life

As long as I was writing about ranching and wolves, I might as well mention another concern of mine which I probably have written about before. Where it comes to Republican proposals, there is one with which I agree-- end the estate tax. I consider it unfair, double taxation and especially unfair to small business owners and ranchers. If there must be one at all, start it at a value of over $10,000,000 to keep the small ranches and businesses still possible for the family to continue operating.

I know the reason people think there should be an estate tax-- level out wealth, "social engineering through tax codes". Stop creation of a permanent wealth class. Well, I say do that through income tax laws that are fair and have purpose to encourage investment. Personally, I do not like it for estates, not even that of say a Bill Gates. He earned his money and his family should be able to inherit it if he so desires which he has said he would not as he'd rather they didn't get so much wealth that way. We'll see if he feels that way when he gets to old age and death planning that is more immediate.

What I don't like about estate taxes particularly applies to small ranches and businesses. So say I have a couple of thousand acres of Eastern Oregon land (yes, that's a small ranch over there) where my family has always raised cattle (something I could only wish to have had).

In my scenario, I would like my son or granddaughter to be able to keep doing it. How do I manage that? It can be helped by turning it into a corporation years ahead of my death, but that necessitates my losing control, and sometimes isn't possible or done soon enough. Because a lot of the value of a ranch is the raw land, and doesn't even indicate its value for ranching, the estate taxes can be so high that the family cannot continue working that land.

So who gets it, who takes it out of family operations? Government helped them do it but it's the financial types, those with a lot of wealth, who can then buy those places and might hire that rancher's kids to work the land they once owned-- turning them into sharecroppers basically.

In my view, estate taxes are more a way to keep wealth from growing in the hands of the middle than it is to keep it from the Donald Trumps of the world. It makes it possible for people like Ted Turner to acquire more and more big ranches and who knows what the end of that will be. The really rich have their methods and enough money to protect their estates anyway. Small ranches aren't big enough to do that, and this is part of why more and more land is being consolidated in fewer hands.

Sometimes the land is put into conservancy which has its values (except for those who love the ranch lifestyle and want to live it, of course)  but the thing is where does that leave Americans, at least those who do eat lamb and beef? Basically it will leave them buying it all from feedlot productions which turn animals from beings into things. It necessitates pumping them full of antibiotics to keep them alive in unhealthy conditions and hormones to cause them to grow faster while they live a miserable existence until fat enough for Americans to be satisfied. There has to be a price in health for this callousness toward the animals even for those who don't give a damn about ranchers who used to be highly respected and too often today are not seen as of value with Americans living further and further from food production with no clue how any of it works out in reality.

I admit I love cattle. I love their beauty, how they care for each other, and enjoy seeing them have a good life.  I am drawn to seeing them wherever I go and enjoy when it looks like a nice place and breaks my heart when it's a feedlot. In the case of the producing cows, on our small ranch, they live out their lives, even if they stop having calves.

I don't like the way Americans don't understand the value of eating grassfed beef, which is as good for health as salmon. Understanding the benefit of grassfed and naturally grown beef means healthier and better for the animals from birth to death. Whoever convinced us to eat the fat stuff sold in stores has not done our health or that of the herds any good.  [ConAgra and Monsanto, et.al.,]

When I am on the road somewhere, I always notice whether the rancher is responsible for his land and animals (which means understands raising of grass comes before anything else-- without a healthy habitat, you aren't in business long).  You can tell where one ranch begins and another ends by quality of fencing and how tall the grass is. I admire those (and there are plenty of them in agriculture) who show responsibility in both.  Ranchers who treat their land well are looking to the future and as good for the country as letting the land lay idle. Livestock raising on ranches does not have to be bad for the environment even if there are certainly examples where it has been.

Top photo taken recently in Montana, second one on our way home along the Middle Fork of the John Day River in Eastern Oregon, and third one of our own cattle.