Today, the government is still wasting taxpayer money on the regulation of milk prices—70-some years and counting. The Federal Milk Marketing Order system (FMMO) was created during the Depression era to dictate price floors for dairy products, with the aim of ensuring that farmers stayed in business and that American families subsequently had local access to affordable milk. While this sounds like a good idea (don’t they all), the problems it was originally created to combat no longer exist in today’s world of high-tech refrigerators and modern transportation. Instead we’re left with a veritable labyrinth of government red tape, just for milk.
A study by the International Dairy Foods Association (a trade group) suggests that if the FMMO had been previously eliminated, the federal government would have saved more than $400 million in 2009. The Cato Institute's Downsizing the Federal Government project likens this scheme to a cartel and the Citizens Against Government Waste thinks it’s an anachronistic waste of money.
The IDFA’s campaign to get Big Government out of milk has added a new way to make your voice heard in the fight against big government. If you’re fed up with government involvement in milk prices, you can send a letter to your Congressional representatives urging them to reform these byzantine regulations. With a deadline of November 23 for spending-reduction recommendations, Congress’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction needs to hear your opinion about eliminating the FMMOand its pointless price regulations.
