Washington, D.C. – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today released the following letter to Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.).
Dear Senator Kohl:

On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), we endorse your effort, during consideration of legislation to provide emergency agriculture assistance for fiscal year 2001, to prevent the adoption of any amendment that would extend and expand dairy compacts.

Procedurally, CCAGW objects to legislating on this vital issue on an emergency assistance bill.  Dairy compact legislation is properly considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee.  The Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact was never approved by a vote of the House, the Senate or any committee.  Instead, it was created and has been extended by being added on to various legislative vehicles in conference.  Please prevent history from repeating itself.

CCAGW also believes that dairy compacts undermine the basic tenets of interstate commerce.  Interstate compacts were intended for cooperative efforts among states, not to wall off competition between states and regions, exactly what dairy compacts are intended to do.

Furthermore, dairy compacts are unacceptable and bad policy for consumers and taxpayers.  In artificially raising milk prices, dairy compacts impose a regressive tax on a basic food, disproportionately affecting children and the poor.  This “milk tax” makes milk less affordable while encouraging excess production.

Excess milk production ends up costing taxpayers, as evidenced by last year’s purchase of over half a billion dollars worth of surplus milk powder by the federal government.  Higher milk prices set by dairy compacts hit Americans twice, once at the store in a hidden tax, and again in higher tax burdens to cover rising government costs.

If the Northeast Compact is extended and Southern, Pacific Northwest and Intermountain Compacts are created, almost half of the nation’s milk supply and two-thirds of American consumers would be brought under the power of the milk-pricing cartels.  The “milk tax” for this expanded dairy compact region would amount to as much as $2 billion annually.

It is time to end the “milk tax” ¾ not impose it on millions more Americans.  CCAGW will consider a vote on this issue in its 2001 Congressional Ratings.

                                    Sincerely,      

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.