By Charles Sleath, Hamilton
It appears that someone in Florence is living under a rock. It is not the Honorable Jon Tester that has his wife cut his hair. It is Matt Rosendale. His ad on TV shows his wife cutting his hair and he is boasting how cheap he is. He won’t pay a barber or hair dresser to cut his hair and says he is putting money back into our pockets. Whaaaat?? I don”t get it. Anyway; it reminds me of something my granddaughter said when George Dubya Bush was in the White House. She said that if you gave a Democrat $20 he would spend it on candy. If you gave a Republican $20 he would buy a shirt. I thought about that and she was right. Let’s say the Democrat is a sugar beet farmer and the Republican is a cotton farmer. The Democrat buys the candy. He eats some and shares some with his family and friends then buys more candy. The candy store owner buys more candy from the candy maker. The candy maker buys more sugar from the sugar factory to make more candy. The sugar factory buy more sugar beets.
On the other hand the Republican cotton farmer buys a shirt. He doesn’t share it with anyone, but wears it until the buttons fall off. He sews buttons back on and wears it some more. When the elbows wear out, he patches them with those brown elbow patches you see on farmers’ shirts and he wears it some more. When he gets a tear in it he patches it again and wears it some more. When he can’t wear it anymore, he uses it for a rag. Meanwhile the guy that owns the shirt store is waiting for him to buy another shirt. The shirt maker is waiting for the shirt store guy to order more shirts and the cotton material manufacturer is waiting for the shirt maker to order more cotton material. The Republican cotton farmer can’t sell his cotton so he blames the government.