The standoff in Harney County Oregon highlights one of the great ironies of the rural West. More than any other people, western rural residents are more heavily dependent on government (read taxpayer) largesse than any other part of America. Yet the average rural resident sees himself/herself as a “rugged and independent” individual and by the way, “hard working” to boot. They may indeed work hard—but no harder than anyone else in this country, but more than other residents, their work and lifestyles are dependent on government and subsidies.

From the pioneer days onward, the federal government has subsidized western rural lifestyles. The earliest federal military expeditions exploring potential trade route, military roads, and railroad routes as well as the military outposts that protected the “independent” western frontier communities from the Native people to the US Army expeditions which helped to subdue the “savages” and sequester them on reservations—all done with tax money from others citizens to largely benefit the western frontier men and women.

Railroads were built, in part, by government subsidies, including the often fraudulent transfer of public domain to private railroads to encourage their construction.

Then laws like the Homestead Act, Timber and Stone Act, Mining Law of 1872, Desert Land Act of 1877, and other development programs assisted the settlement of the West by giving away government land free or at rock bottom prices. Some of these laws are still on the books like the Desert Land Act and Mining Law of 1872 which gives away government land for as little as $5.00 an acre.

And though there is a strong “anti-government” rhetoric expressed by rural communities, when there is an effort to reduce or modify these subsidies and/or charge the real price for services, the outcry from rural residents about how the government is out to destroy their way of life (welfare) usually puts a quick stop to such campaigns.

Take for instance, the debate over ranching on public lands being promulgated by the so-called militia (armed criminals) and the Hammond family who are now serving time for arson. Ranchers with grazing privileges (they are not rights) on federal lands pay fees considerably lower than the cost for grazing on identical private lands. The current price is $1.69 an AUM (the amount of forage it takes to feed a cow and calf for a month) is considerably less than the average of $20.00 an AUM on private lands. One can’t feed a cat for $1.69 a month, much less a thousand pound cow and a 500 pound calf for $1.69.

Livestock production has many ecological impacts—the spread of weeds, soil compaction, changes in plant community structure, trampling of stream banks, pollution of streams, springs, and wetlands, social displacement of native animals (elk avoid cattle), transfer of disease from domestic animals to wildlife (as with pneumonia to wild bighorns) and many other costs that ranchers grazing on public lands do not pay, and not reflected in the paltry fee paid by ranchers for the privilege of using public resources. The financial cost of fixing these problems falls upon all taxpayers—if they are dealt with at all.

However, this is only the beginning of the subsidies for the rancher/farmers. Most western ranchers rely on irrigation to grow hay for winter feeding of their livestock. The federal government has spent billions building water storage reservoirs, irrigation canals, pipelines and providing low cost subsidized electricity to run pumps to produce the hay/alfalfa ranchers use to feed their animals. In most cases, the construction of these reservoirs, canals, pipelines, etc. vastly exceeds what the irrigators pay for the water.

Even if the rancher is only diverting water from a stream, few ranchers acknowledge that the water is owned by the public under the Public Trust Doctrine. Use of this water is not a “right” but a privilege granted to irrigators at the pleasure of the state’s citizens. Dewatering of rivers to grow livestock feed has led to the endangerment of many native fish species and other aquatic species dependent on reliable water flows. Again the irrigators do not pay for these losses, nor the costs of fish recovery efforts.

It is the infrastructure that government provides that allows the rancher to exist. One of the bitter ironies for many ranching families in the rural West is their dependency on towns for their existence. Most ranchers, with the exception of the very wealthiest, depend on outside income to sustain their lifestyle. It is jobs in town driving a school bus, working seasonally for the Forest Service, selling real estate, working as a county commissioner, and other employment income that allows the rancher to continue his vocation in the first place.

Another subsidized industry is logging. Nearly all timber sales on public lands lose money. Since public timber lands are generally higher, steeper, and less accessible than the private forestlands, logging costs are higher. The cost of sale layout, administration, road building, and reforestation frequently exceeds the revenues the timber industry pays for the logs. Again these subsidies do not include the many environmental/ecological costs associated with logging like sedimentation from logging roads that clogs streams, harming salmon, trout and other fish species or the loss of hiding cover for elk. Ironically subsidized logging on public lands is done at the expense of the private timber owner who must compete against subsidized federal timber.

A growing subsidy is the cost of fighting fires in the West. Most of the growing cost is associated with protecting homes and structure built in fire-prone areas. Of course, whenever someone suggests that people should be prevented from building in these areas, rural residents scream about property “rights” and their right to stupidly build in these places. But they then complain when the government doesn’t act swift enough or forcefully enough in their view to protect their homes.

There are many other massive federal programs that are primarily or wholly available to rural residents and rural industries. These include below cost farm loans, Rural Development and Loan and Grant Assistance Program, Beginning Farmers and Ranchers loan program, Crop and Livestock Insurance, Drought Insurance, Federal/State Marketing Improvement Program, Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, Electric Infrastructure Loan and Loan Guarantee Program, Telecommunication Infrastructure Loans, and many other programs.

In fact, in many years, western farmers and ranchers sometimes “earn” as much as half of “their” income from farm/ranch subsidy programs. For example, the Hammond family which is the original spark that started this latest militia event, have received at a minimum of nearly $300,000 in direct subsidies from the federal government, not to mention other federal benefits like taxpayer-funded predator control, and below cost grazing on public lands.

These are just some of the subsidized industries, but it goes further than industry. Rural residents enjoy greater federal largesse in many other forms. Government funded rural airports, postal service, the massive state and federal highway system, satellite communications, water treatment plants, schools, and much of the other infrastructure that permits these “independent” people to live in sparsely-settled far-flung communities in relative comfort and even permits a lot of their economic activity is a direct result of government largesse.

Of course there are other federal programs that largely benefit urban residents. We all benefit from various government programs, and personally I am very grateful for them. I appreciate the highways, libraries, schools, parks, and all the rest of the infrastructure that my taxes provide. I believe most urban people do not despise government, though most of us probably think it could function better. Still we are wise enough to understand we are dependent on government programs and grateful for the assistance we all receive.

However, many rural westerners live in a mythological land where they are independent. But the outrage expressed in rural America represents a cultural pathology born of resentment, perhaps over their own dependency. It is an ideological cognitive dissonance that is reinforced by the media, cultural institutions and politicians that maintain the dependency.

A lot of the rhetoric against government is a form of self-loathing. Government employment is the largest contributor to Harney County income with 44% of all jobs and 57.4% of the wages resulting from government employment. https://www.qualityinfo.org/-/government-employment-in-eastern-oregon

In that regard, these “independent” westerners remind me of teenagers who demand the keys to the family car, and oh yes, please give me gas money, but do not tell me when to come in at night. And how dare you even inquire where I’m going or doing.

What it represents is a cultural immaturity that fails to appreciate the many benefits bestowed upon rural residents, particularly those living near large blocks of federal lands. Whether it is the wide open spaces and abundant opportunities for camping, hunting, fishing, and just plain enjoying the clean air, water, and scenic landscapes that public lands provide to the infrastructure in the form of boat launches, campgrounds, fishing access sites, and all the rest that are typically paid for by all Americans, rural westerners get a disproportionate benefit from the government largesse.

What the militia take-over in Harney County represents is a temper tantrum. What rural westerners need to do is grow up. If they really wish to have the “gubmint” out of their lives, they will likely find themselves in greater poverty and their communities in population decline.