Calls Proposed Legislation “Milking the Taxpayers”

(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today decried S. 273, an amendment to the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 that would extend the Milk Income Loss Compensation (MILC) program for two years beyond its scheduled expiration date of September 30, 2005.

“The MILC program is best described as an outrageous milking of the taxpayers, particularly during a time of relatively high milk prices,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “There is no justification for extending this program.  The dairy industry is already subsidized through the dairy price support program, which costs taxpayers at least $1 billion annually for the purchase of surplus dairy products.”

When the MILC program was created as part of the 2002 farm bill, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the program would cost $1.3 billion over three years.  In its first two years, however, the program cost $2 billion – more than 130 percent higher than estimated.  Last fall, CBO estimated that a two-year extension of the program would cost more than $2.4 billion.  If history is any guide, the actual cost to taxpayers could be more than $5 billion.

In addition to the two-year extension of the MILC program, S. 273 doubles the cap on the amount of milk for which an individual dairy producer can receive the MILC payment, which will also increase the overall cost of the program.

“The effect of this provision is that it will double the taxpayer subsidy to the nation’s wealthiest dairy farmers, which means that the taxpayers will not only be milked, but they will be totally creamed,” Schatz said.  “This is a sour deal for taxpayers.”          

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.