Sustainable Cowboys or Welfare Ranchers of the American West?

Five hundred million dollars. That’s what 21,000 ranchers who graze their livestock on America’s iconic western rangelands are estimated to have cost US taxpayers in 2014 — and every year for the past decade. This averages out to an annual taxpayer subsidy of $23,809 per rancher — approximately a quarter of a million dollars each since 2005. So why does this small subset, representing just 2.7% of US livestock producers, protest the “welfare rancher” label?

The public lands grazing program is welfare.

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