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Poor Man’s Truck: Greg Evers And The Daily Show With Jon Stewart?
April 3, 2015
by The News Service of Florida
The conversation may not attract national attention, but Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, can imagine his Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee once again being late-night fodder.
On March 25, “The Daily Show,” hosted by Jon Stewart, featured a piece on Gov. Rick Scott’s reported prohibition against the word “climate change.” The piece included an exchange from the previous week in which Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, tried to get state Division of Emergency Management Director Bryan Koon to utter the phrase “climate change.”
The piece was punctuated by Latvala onscreen turning off his microphone as he laughed at the end of the Koon-Clemens exchange.
“Wait, wait. Don’t laugh,” Stewart told his audience with the frame frozen on Latvala as he laughed. “That one guy needs the Heimlich. He’s our first climate-change casualty. ‘Why did I eat shrimp while listening to the speech.’ ”
But the latest potential fodder doesn’t have anything to do with climate change. This time, the topic Thursday was a proposal by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, to reduce an annual registration fee on trucks modified to haul melons directly from the field to market.
“We haven’t been on the Stewart show yet this week, so I think this is the next one coming,” Latvala said before the subcommittee he chairs voted to advance the proposal.
Evers, who hails from the northwest corner of the state and has one of the deepest Southern drawls in the Legislature, wants to reduce the fee on school buses that have their tops cut off so farmers can load them quickly with watermelons.
“This is virtually a poor man’s truck,” Evers said.
As other senators asked if the bill would discriminate against other types of modified vehicles, or farmers hauling different crops, Evers said he’d welcome amendments at future stops that even specified “grapes” or “cannabis” as long as he gets his bill approved.
“You can put them in the back of a pick ‘em up truck,” Evers said.
Comments
5 Responses to “Poor Man’s Truck: Greg Evers And The Daily Show With Jon Stewart?”
Further explanation; The reason the tops are cut off these harvesting machines is so that field workers can throw the melons to the stackers who are in the in the back. Melons are very labor intensive to begin with, and without these machines, the added labor to pick melons could run the price of them up dramatically. To assure an affordable food supply, all rules and regulations (both federal and state) that hinder a farmer in his efforts to produce affordable food should be looked at carefully, and unnecessary laws and regulations be repealed. The majority of people in this country somehow think that the groceries that they find so neatly arranged on the grocery store shelves somehow appeared magically. Let’s lighten the load on farmers, and get the government off their backs. .
To those laughing…how many have had to hussle to get a crop in so it won’t be ruined? How many know that if the farmer doesn’t get the crop to the market in time he loses all the time and money he has invested? And how many of you laughing are enjoying melons in the summer because a farmer grew them and transported them? Thank you Greg Evers for supporting the farming community! I don’t care how they transport the melons, etc., as long as it is a safe means. The government has made enough laws that make it hard on farmers and every day people.
Mr. Evers is right on; The melon pickers use those cut down buses only to pick melons in the field, and transport them to the packing sheds. They don’t use them to transport melons to the grocery stores. They are only used for two months a year. They should be classified as any other farm equipment. Mr. Evers is not “bending the rules” as melodies says, he is changing them to accommodate one very important segment of our agricultural economy. Good job Mr. Evers
This is ridiculous. They should not bend the rules 4 anyone. I wonder who’s buddy is wanting to transport melons with a rattle shack bus?
We need more like Evers in our government, thinking of the human not making points with the big dog government.