Copy of Sentinel V22 #41-Lee and Paul Are Misguided and Wasting Taxpayers’ Money
- Steve Dittmer
- Jul 22
- 6 min read
Scurrilous Comments Are Uncalled For
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 05/29/25
We repeat for the umpteenth time. Consumers around the world are paying record prices for beef because they really like its taste, tenderness and flavor. One of the key reasons for that palatability and predictability is the continuous research, promotion, advertising, nutrition messages and health information defense provided by the beef checkoff. Millions of dollars and millions of volunteer hours have been invested by cattlemen and cattlewomen to bring the product to its present state of success.
But there are those who don’t recognize that history, don’t like that result and want to reverse the tide. And we’re not referring to the obvious activists who hate meat eating, who blame cattle and cowboys for global warming/climate change, who believe that after several thousand years of human progress it must be eating meat that is ruining our health and longevity.
No, we’re talking about people within our industry who should know better and those enablers who don’t know about our industry and help some cattle people wallow in their ignorance or remain blinded by ulterior motives that are at odds with our industry’s future.
It is obvious that drought and the supply of cattle are the principle drivers of our beef prices today. But does anyone believe that consumer would be paying $18 to $30 for steaks at retail, $25-$50 for steaks in restaurants and scarfing up beef burgers and brisket dinners like they were free -- when they are not -- if they weren’t the best they’ve ever been? Do you believe that that demand happened by accident? Do you believe that it all happened without effort?
So with this record of success, of sterling results, of cattlemen and cattlewomen working together to nurture their own industry, why would some people want to punish those efforts or destroy them?
Count Sens. Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker as enablers those who want to punish cattlemen and cattlewomen. They’ve re-introduced the “OFF” act, to “cut government waste by enforcing transparency in checkoff programs,” (”Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act”).
Lee was quoted as saying farmers are being “ripped off” by checkoff programs and have a “reputation for hurting farmers through financial fraud and deceptive practices.”
Question: have you ever sat down with a committee of officials responsible for spending any major corporation’s money, with dollars budgeted and spent on the table in front of you? Have you sat in on officials reviewing benchmarked research, viewed programs executed and looked at the results? Even publicly traded companies don’t reveal that kind of granular detail unless you are a company official with a need to know.
But cattlemen can walk into any committee of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board meetings and know why and how their money is being spent. That’s transparency.
Of course, there will always be people of questionable intelligence and contrary natures. That’s human nature.
But we expect more in the nature of intelligence, fairmindedness, astute observance and recognition of positive results, from elected representatives in our Congress, even, dare we say, of members of the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” the U.S. Senate.
Well, expectations are one thing. Results are another, be they consistently horrifying or just once in a great while.
We don’t expect much to help the beef industry from New Jersey’s Cory Booker or Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren. We don’t expect anything useful from them period.
Sometimes politicians are not well served by their staff. We well remember attending a zoom session a couple years ago when Lee was insistent that taxpayer money was being misspent by the checkoffs. He did not believe -- or had not been properly informed -- that checkoff funds are paid by cattlemen, that even the supervisory time and money expended by USDA in making certain that checkoff funds are properly spent is all reimbursed by checkoff funds. The taxpayer is out nothing. But they can enjoy better beef than ever in their life, and millions of acres of well-cared for land, courtesy of American cattlemen.
But Sen. Mike Lee has been hanging out with the wrong people again. And he’s drug Sen. Rand Paul with him.
Coming from a western state with millions of bovines and cattle people, we would expect Sen. Mike Lee to exhibit some knowledge and some judgement regarding the cattle industry. After all, in most issues, that’s what we’ve gotten used to. We have silently cheered him on dozens of times in interviews on radio and television.
But he has a blind spot, a flash of sheer mule headedness when it comes to farmers and ranchers taking their hard-earned money and promoting their own product.
Sen. Rand Paul represents a state with millions of cattle and thousands of cattle people. In fact, Kentucky ranks 8th in the nation in cattle numbers and has 69,000 cattle operations. We used to go to Kentucky to buy 4-H club calves from good cattlemen in Kentucky (thanks Buck). As a young cattleman, we actually visited “the Baron’s” Hereford operation -- UK Coach Adolph Rupp. Compare the cattle numbers of Kentucky and Utah and you might be surprised. After all, in rains a lot in Kentucky.
Yet Rand Paul has decided to ally himself with an effort to makes lives difficult for people trying to better themselves and their industry.
As Elon Musk has amply demonstrated, Congress has purposely, or blindly ignored, many billions of dollars misspent by government and government-sponsored programs of highly dubious contents and intent all over the world.
But let a bunch of cattle people spend decades trying to improve their product and make their business conditions better, to make their way of life continue, and the wrath of Lee and Paul descends on them like they were bad guys from the other side of the globe.
And let’s not forget other players in the beef production chain.
Packers and processors have not only collected the checkoff for decades, they have done their own research, run product innovation labs, run quality control detection and monitoring systems. Auction markets have helpfully collected the checkoff for cattlemen for many decades.
The packers, processors, importers and the checkoff have done terrific overseas export promotion, access work and industry defense for 50 years at the USMEF. They can proudly point to nearly $500/fed animal increased value from export efforts. How’s that for “government waste” and “financial fraud?”
Now, that’s the nicest things we can say. The “news” release that Sen. Lee put out in describing the legislation he introduced contains more scurrilous allegations and false accusations. And some of his supporting comments came from individuals who have devoted major portions of their professional lives to tearing down the beef industry.
Joe Maxwell, for example, worked at HSUS, trying mightily to advance the cause of vegetarianism and the destruction of production beef operations. He was at the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), working to destroy free market beef operations and the checkoff. Bill Bullard has spent hundreds of hours and many hundred thousands of cattlemen’s money suing the checkoff and USDA, trying to destroy the national beef checkoff. OCM allied with HSUS to sue the checkoff and monitor the separation of the promotion and lobbying divisions of the NCBA for years.
They failed to find the skullduggery they insisted was there.
HSUS and OCM have lost in courts of law multiple times, make claims and accusations they could not prove.
Why on earth would Mike Lee and Rand Paul ally themselves with such efforts? Did they do no research into the court battles or the way checkoffs are really run?
The beef checkoff is already transparent in their operations; requires competition for contracts; enforces benchmarks, measurements and documented results from contractors; is audited privately and by USDA and is run by the cattle people who pay the money.
Warren actually accused checkoffs in general of hiring “corporate lobbyists.” The beef checkoff has never done any such thing. That is a flat out lie, as far as the beef checkoff is concerned, and we doubt any other checkoffs have ever done so. It is prohibited by enabling legislation.
Some people just can’t stand success and hate the people who have achieved something. The beef industry has done great things and has efforts in place to keep building on that success.
We don’t need people trying to wreck things. We certainly don’t need senators who know little about the industry trying to interfere in well-run, successful cattlemen’s efforts.
Link to Lee’s release:
Contact info:
Sen. Mike Lee
Sen. Rand Paul
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Cory Booker
House contact info:
Senate contact info:
Our address: Agribusiness Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 88179, Colorado Springs, CO. 80908.
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