Don’t Serve Cheese at Your Next Tea Party

A common refrain heard at election rallies this year was government is out of control.  Often in angry tones, rally goers would point to the recent health care bill or corporate bailouts and say government must be stopped.  Never mind that many of the politicians playing to these crowds played loose with the facts, the theme sold and swept many new people into office.  But, before you dismiss the anti-government crowd entirely, you need consider government cheese.  Yep, government cheese.  That recurring comedic punch line is an excellent example of why the government, specifically the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gives these naysayers strong ground on which to stand.

In a front-page story this morning, the New York Times reports on Dairy Management, a $140 million marketing creation of the Department of Agriculture to get the American people to eat more cheese.  Dairy Management’s revenue comes largely from a government-mandated fee (I still call that a tax) and is supplemented by several additional million from the Department itself.  Through a series of confidential (yes, confidential) agreements, Dairy Management has induced companies like Domino’s Pizza and Taco Bell to stuff their products with cheese to get fat Americans to eat even more of the gelatinous goo.

The struggling pizza chain, Domino’s, is the benefactor of a $12 million all-expense-paid marketing campaign.  All Domino’s had to do was introduce a line of pizzas with 40% more cheese.  One slice of this pizza has two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended saturated fat all while the Department is bending over backwards to tout its  $6.5 million Center for Nutritional Policy and Promotion effort to promote a healthy diet.  ($140 million to eat more cheese to $6.5 million to eat healthier, hmmmmm?)

Dairy Management cooed in one report about how its agreement with Taco Bell had created a new quesadilla that used eight times more cheese than any other of its menu items.  The steak quesadilla with cheddar, pepper jack mozzarella and a creamy sauce (everybody knows three kinds of cheese is best enjoyed with a creamy sauce) is a win for Dairy Management as it rings in with more than three-quarters of the daily-recommended level of both saturated fat and sodium.  (Whoo-hoo, way to go, government!)

Dairy Management is one example of a government program started with good intentions that has run amuck.  During the Depression, the Agriculture Department bought the cheese industry’s excess product and gave it to those in need, helping to save family farms and feed people in difficult times.  The Depression ended, but the program has continued to grow.  By 1983, the government had a stockpile of $4 billion in cheese stored in Missouri caves.  (I am not making that up!)  Today, Dairy Management is focused on trying to get Americans to eat even more of the stuff, even though our consumption has skyrocketed from over ten pounds a year in the 1970’s to 33 pounds a year today.   Cheese is the largest source of saturated fat adding to Americans’ waistlines, clogged arteries and overall fine physiques.  And, Dairy Management is a bloated example of why government may just be out of control.

There is something wrong with a government that colludes with an industry to increase the sales of a product that its people do not need and is actually contributing to obesity and its related health problems.  Dairy Management spent $136 million domestically last year and an additional $5.6 million of Department money to promote dairy sales overseas.  Next time you go to a Tea Party, you might want to ask your host to hold the cheese, lest you want to be seen as a tool of the run-away government you decry.

(In the interest of self-disclosure, the writer of this piece loves cheese and he firmly believes he would even if the government wasn’t marketing it to him.)

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(Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com)

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Senator Grassley is Mad about Something, Never Mind it may not have Happened

Senator Grassley sounds angry in his approximately three minute YouTube post this week. He says an internal memo sent by Alejandro Mayorkas, director U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), to four of Mayorkas’ own staff “revealed a possible effort by this administration to provide backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants.” Grassley got my attention with “backdoor amnesty.” That sounds bad. I hit pause and immediately went to Grassley’s website and read the offending 11 page memo.

Back to YouTube: Grassley requests that the Senate Judiciary Committee call the “the Director of Homeland Security and the authors of the memo to appear before Judiciary to explain the documents and the impetus behind their plans.” Well, there was only one author of the memo, and I did not see any “plans.” While some of the points raised in the memo are questionable, no matter how one looks at the memo, it can be seen as nothing more than a think-piece. It was not sent up the chain-of-command, it was sent down. Grassley has no evidence policy has changed in anyway. Unless she is micro-managing, it may very well be the first the Director of Homeland Security knew of this memo was when she received Grassley’s inquiry about it two weeks ago.

Grassley goes on to say he has not received replies to two letters he sent to the Administration regarding immigration. He says the Administration has “not reassured us that they will not circumvent Congress to legalize millions of immigrants.” Well, they did when they took the Oath of Office, but some will say I am just being snarky. Grassley is playing a bit of a game. The Obama Administration has not said they would circumvent Congress either, nor have they changed immigration policy in any meaningful way. Apparently five mid to lower level employees had a discussion about what could be done should Congress continue to fail to act on immigration. That, Senator, is their job.

Senator Grassley continues by saying, “if there is nothing to hide, the Administration should be able to provide a complete report about how this authority has been used and will be used in the future. If something bigger is underway and implemented, large numbers of undocumented immigrants could be put out of reach of immigration enforcement officials.” Sorry, Senator, the Administration’s refusal to answer every time you accuse them of something underhanded, especially when you present no sign anything has happened, does not make them guilty. Even worse is the line about keeping undocumented immigrants out of reach of law enforcement. If Grassley had a whiteboard instead of a muted Capitol over his shoulder, I would imagine it would say Grassley=supporter of the law and Obama=supporter of law breakers.

Senator Grassley closes with, “keeping Congress and the American people in the dark just isn’t right… we need to get to the bottom of this and find the motivations behind his memo. We ought to know if there is an end-run around the Congress of the United States.” I agree lightness and open government is better than darkness and backroom deals. If the Administration does something to circumvent the law, the offenders should be penalized. However, five government staffers discussing policy options is, well, something we should all expect and, dare I say it, encourage. Just because Senator Grassley takes an angry tone and implies so, does not mean something dirty is going on. No laws were broken. The Senator should stand down.

But, now that I have read the USCIS memo, I wonder what came out of the follow-up meeting…

(SINCE I WAS ON YOUTUBE ANYWAY AND I PARAPHRASED “THERE IS NOTHING DIRTY GOING ON” FROM A FAVORITE DOLLY PARTON SONG, HERE IS A LITTLE REWARD FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO STUCK WITH ME THIS LONG.)

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.