HERD ABOUT IT?

by Ana Grarian

Rick Perry pulled a Michele Bachmann on Tuesday, passionately condemning a policy that does not actually exist.

 

 

This time round it was over farming issues. “If you’re a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re gonna have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?” perry told a Des Moines crowd. “What were they thinking?”

As it turns out, Perry’s claim is based off a false rumor that was circulating among farmers that the Department of Transportation recently put to rest. The Wall Street Journal reports that the confusion was over a federal review of a proposal by Illinois to require commercial licenses for farmers, but the DOT ultimately concluded — as Perry did — that “the common sense exemptions that allow farmers, their employers, and their families to accomplish their day-to-day work and transport their products to market” should not be tampered with by states.

Read the entire article at Talking Points Memo

One difficulty with these laws is how to protect the rights of a small farmer who needs to get tractors and equipment from the farmstead into the fields, while ensuring that mega farms, which use huge trucks and tractors, have employees who are skilled enough to handle them safely.