“‘I’ve signed farmers who were sitting there with broken-down equipment, a broken roof, losing money because they wouldn’t put a fence up to keep critters out of their corn silo,’ Casale said. ‘You go and write them a check and they’ve got a brand-new tractor and a brand-new Ford truck, and the corn silo’s still the same. You know that old adage, the shoemaker’s kid doesn’t have shoes? I hate to say it, but I see a lot of them worse off than when they started.’
“Sometimes, he told me, he found himself thinking, I’m killing this county.”