On Wednesday the United States Department of Agriculture declared that more than 1,000 counties and 26 states, that have been affected by the recent drought, had been declared natural disaster areas. That makes this declaration the largest natural disaster in the history of America.
The declaration covers more than half of the nation and ends up giving farmers and ranchers who have suffered from the drought access to, you guessed it federal aid and low-interest emergency loans, or we like to think of it as tax payer money.
While making the announcement on Wednesday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, “Agriculture remains a bright spot in our nation’s economy. We need to be cognizant of the fact that drought and weather conditions have severely impacted farmers around the country.”
Though much of the country has experienced drought conditions , according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, some areas have seen intense downpours and flooding.
Temperatures in the month of June saw more than 170 all-time temperature records broken or tied.
Seeing that this has been called a “natural disaster” and that it has also been the largest declared natural disaster in our nation’s history, we should think carefully about all those things that have been put into place to deal with such “disasters” and what the inevitable cost will be to taxpayers.
