For Immediate Release November 13, 2012

Contact:  Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334 Luke Gelber 202-467-5318

Two of Nation’s Largest Watchdog Groups Release Second Video Opposing Farm Bill’s Dairy Scheme

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) and the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) released the second in a series of videos alerting consumers, taxpayers, and the organizations’ membership to the dangers of the Dairy Market Stabilization Program (DMSP). The video is available at the website: YourMilkMoney.org. The DMSP is contained in the $969 billion Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act (FARRM). The DMSP would launch a new raft of complicated federal rules and regulations aimed at keeping prices high for families who buy milk or dairy products like cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and pizza, and continue government control over the nation’s milk supply.

The DMSP intensifies federal intervention into dairy markets and food businesses, allowing the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to oversee policies that would effectively penalize farmers for exceeding government-established milk production levels, thus artificially inflating milk prices. A similar system – involving outright quotas – is in operation in Canada, where consumers pay significantly higher prices for dairy products than in the United States and where the dairy industry has been stagnant over the last several decades.

Conversely, the U.S.’s dairy industry has grown 66 percent in the last 40 years and creates 8,400 jobs for every billion dollars in dairy exports. A supply management rubric such as the DMSP is explicitly structured to interfere with free market forces to keep milk prices high, making dairy products more expensive. If enacted, the DMSP will also increase taxpayers’ costs for federal nutrition programs, including food stamps and school meals programs.

Increased prices for milk and dairy foods, such as cheese and yogurt, will hit low-income families the hardest, since they spend a larger percentage of their income on food.

“One of the most interesting facts to come out of the recent election is that 51 percent of voters believe that government is doing too much, an increase of 7 percent from 2008,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “The DMSP is precisely the kind of incessant meddling that has outraged American taxpayers. The U.S. dairy program is already a mindlessly convoluted patchwork of government manipulation; instead of grafting more rules and regulations onto an already incomprehensible operation, the federal government should be getting out of the way and letting the free market drive milk drive production.”

“As its name implies, Congress’s lame-duck session could hatch many bad ideas for taxpayers and consumers, and rushing to enact the DMSP would be one of the worst,” said NTU Executive Vice President Pete Sepp. “While cash-strapped families prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving as best they can this year, it would be a shame if Congress were to pass the DMSP and give them less to be grateful for at future holiday tables.”

Taxpayers and consumers can visit YourMilkMoney.org for more information on the issue and to contact their members of Congress in opposition to the DMSP. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. NTU is a nonpartisan citizen group founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes and limited government.