Stop begging for federal scraps

To the editor:

In the March 13 issue of The Western News, we learned that Lincoln County once more will be holding out our hands and begging for federal scraps made available in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. In other words, other people’s money.

Am I the only one with blood shooting out of my eyes? Here we sit, surrounded by billions of dollars of standing timber in the Kootenai National Forest, and our county is begging for crumbs.

Just this week, the County Commissioners in Mineral County showed their chutzpah by their lawsuit against the federal government, suing for a small share of the revenues that used to come to the county in the long standing revenue sharing agreement, revenue derived from timber sales on the National Forests.

Instead of begging for leftovers, in reality just dollars extorted from other taxpayers, why don’t the Lincoln County Commissioners show the same willingness to challenge the federal government as do our neighbors to the south?

We are surrounded by an embarrassment of timber resources, and we beg for scraps. The federal government has been stealing from us for years. It is immoral, illegal and needs to stop.

—Lawrence Miller

Troy