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(Washington, D.C.) --
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today criticized
the federal government's $1 billion stash of milk powder buried in
caves under Kansas City. The powder, a product of 70 year-old
farm subsidies, costs $20 million annually to maintain and is a
layover from the bad old days of command and control agriculture
policy. Equivalent to 1.3 billion gallons of skim milk, the
government has bought enough milk powder to supply the country for
16 months. The government buys the milk to keep it off the
market and thereby maintains artificially high dairy
prices.
Although the
Freedom to Farm Act of 1996 was written to phase out these wasteful
dairy subsidies once and for all, it was subsequently evaded,
extended, and finally repealed by the massive $170 billion Farm Bill
just signed into law, which means that the government is back in the
powder mountain creation business.
"Those subsidies
were the walking dead," CAGW President Tom Schatz said. "They should
be gone. Instead, weak-willed legislators brought this
depression-era boondoggle back to life and now we're paying $20
million a year to warehouse milk the government wants to keep off
the market. This is a program that would have made Soviet
policy makers proud."
Sens. Jim
Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) toasted glasses of milk
last May to celebrate the successful passage of the 2002 Farm
Bill. Vermont's delegation in particular has an interest in
subsidies and price floors which encourage milk farms, a major
industry in Vermont, to overproduce. Because the government
promises to buy any leftovers they have at high prices, 386 million
pounds of milk powder have been purchased by Uncle Sam since
October.
Jeffords,
instrumental in cementing the 2002 Farm Bill, explained how farm
politics really work during the 1996 Freedom to Farm debate:
"Incidentally, later on we'll have a chance to vote for something to
protect [Minnesota and Wisconsin], something to give them what they
want, and we're willing to go along with it if they leave us
alone."
"It must be
difficult to claim that these subsidies are desperately needed and
then overproduce," Schatz added, "but these special
interests -- and their political supporters -- do
it. Rather than end the obviously unnecessary subsidies,
Congress is even considering legislation to put a tariff on foreign
milk protein. This would raise the cost of milk production,
making the government's set prices appear less absurd. Talk
about prescribing more of the disease as the
cure."
Citizens Against
Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated
to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in
government.
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