June 13, 2013            

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.  20515

Dear Representative,  
    
Next week, the House will consider H.R. 1947, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act, more commonly known as the Farm Bill.  Included in the bill is the misguided Dairy Market Stabilization Program (DMSP) that was proposed during the 112th Congress.  On behalf of the millions of members and supporters with the organizations listed below, we urge you to oppose all efforts to include the DMSP in this already-flawed legislation.

Federal policy for the U.S. dairy market includes a tangle of subsidies and price supports, whose Byzantine nature would make even a Soviet-era apparatchik proud.  For example, the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program pays dairy farmers directly every time the price of milk falls below a specified target price.  According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in 2009 the federal government spent more than $1.3 billion to support the industry through the MILC program and other dairy support programs.

Unfortunately for taxpayers, DMSP is no improvement on these socialistic arrangements. As CRS noted, DMSP’s main mechanism is “intended to have one or both of two basic effects, either of which is expected to result in a higher future farm price for milk.”  DMSP would allow the federal government to purchase excess supply from producers and offer subsidized insurance against drops in price, two provisions that should be as odious to the GOP rank-and-file as they are to Speaker Boehner.

The consequences should be equally unacceptable to Republicans.  Consumers will pay more at the cash register for many kinds of dairy products, while food manufacturers pay more for their raw material and be hindered from creating jobs as well as exports. Taxpayers will suffer as well, since they will foot a bigger bill for the very nutrition programs whose costs Republicans claim they wish to contain.  How can Republicans credibly argue to these hard-working Americans that GOP lawmakers are truly aiming to restore limited government and revive the private sector if DMSP is allowed to metastasize in federal farm policy?  The answer is, they can’t sell such an argument to struggling taxpayers.  
   
After last year’s failed effort to reform America’s outdated agriculture policies, the 2013 Farm Bill must not include the same wasteful provisions such as DMSP.  History shows that government attempts to manipulate supply and demand of goods and services – whether on commodities, energy, or health care – will encourage economic inefficiency, political opportunism, and fiscal decay.  Any Members of Congress who profess to be free-market conservatives should reject DMSP in the Farm Bill and instead support the deregulation of milk markets so that dairy can resemble other competitive industries across the country.

Signatory organizations of this letter that compile congressional ratings will be considering votes on H.R. 1947 for scoring purposes.

Sincerely,

Tom Schatz
President
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste

Pete Sepp
Executive Vice President
National Taxpayers Union

Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform

Andrew Moylan
Outreach Director and Senior Fellow
R Street

Mattie Duppler
Executive Director
Cost of Government Center

Matt Kibbe
President and CEO
FreedomWorks

James Valvo
Director of Policy
Americans for Prosperity

Chris Chocola
President
Club for Growth

Iain Murray
Vice President
Competitive Enterprise Institute

Seton Motley
President
Less Government