Harney County, Oregon—the site of a two-week long, militia-led standoff against the federal government—is “the most government-dependent county in Oregon,” according to a report from the New York Times.
The 2013 statistic, which is the most recent available, reveals that the relationship between the county’s approximately 7,000 residents and the government is more complicated than standoff leader Ammon Bundy admits in front of television cameras.
According to a Times story on the sagging economy in Harney County, government jobs at prisons, schools and the very wildlife refuge occupied by Bundy and his brigade form the life blood of a community that once leaned more heavily on private industry. Today, the Times reports that 60 percent of the income in the county comes from “the public sector.”
The state of Delaware could fit four times comfortably in the sprawling lands that make up Harney County, which once leaned heavily on the timber industry for good paying jobs. Since the 1980s, most of the mills have closed around Burns, the town closest to the wildlife reduge.
According to the Times, the economic woes of living on the high plains in Oregon have become so devastating that Harney County has lost 4 percent of its people since 2010.
I’m sure we are all shocked, just shocked, to read this…
I’m pretty sure that Harney county residents would rather return to a timber based economy than remain so dependent on the federal government.
I’m not a fan of the Bundys and this illegal takeover but please, let’s not reduce the citizens there to being “takers”. It’s a bit more complicated as the Times article points out.
Nice article by the NYT by the way. It speaks to a good deal of America, not just Harney county. Oregon’s government is pretty actively exploring ways to make higher wage, non-government jobs available by expanding broadband internet access and other gateways to rural counties. Not everyone wants to live in the Portland Metro area.
this should surprise no one here as we are aware the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance are very strong with the TGOP.
It is just like all of the Red States that take far more from the Federal government than they put in complaining about Welfare, Makers/Takers etc.
Or just like the 1%ers complaining about the “free stuff” low wage people get that cost the country less than their capital gains tax advantages Rob from the economy…
Then I feel even less sorry for these folks. They should deal with these with these astroturfers on their own. The fact that some are sympathetic to these walking asswipes makes me even less inclined to worry about them. After all, they’re within the same state that rushed out to curse Obama when he dared to visit the families of the mass shooting up there. And that town was also described as “conservative” and “fiercely indepedent.”
My ass.
our state did no such f’ing thing.