Free Milk

NewsHour had an interesting story about problems in the dairy market caused by increased efficiency and a glut of milk.

One dairy farmer says because he has cows producing milk he can't use, he is losing over $70 per cow per month, because he still needs to feed and maintain those cows. His solution? Have the government take money from successful farms and give it to unsuccessful ones.

Seriously.

He is losing in the market, so he wants the government to "establish a certain amount of allowable growth, facility by facility, dairy farm by dairy farm. And if you exceeded that growth rate, you would pay a market access fee," where those fees would go to dairies that didn't grow.

This might sound shocking to many of us, but the sad thing is that our government does this sort of thing all the time. Legislators can't help themselves. They love micromanaging everything they can, and damn your rights in the process. It's like when state legislator Hans Dunshee (D-44) justified state regulation of animal masseuses with a shrug, saying, "people come to ask us to do things, you know?"

Except this is for the farmers. The unsuccessful farmers, anyway.