Pete, rather than address the real issues with the checkoff—has it been effective, is the requisite oversight present to qualify as government speech, and has NCBA misused funds, as examples—you make a straw man argument (“Justice for R-CALF” in the Aug. 7 issue of WLJ).
At core, you contend that R-CALF’s Montana lawsuit is tainted by the presence of Public Justice. I assume you are aware that NCBA was a founding member of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and that other members/affiliates are the Rain Forest Alliance, National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, and the UN’s Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock. Checkoff funds have helped with this nonsense.
Since the passage of the checkoff, per capita beef consumption is declined about 30 percent. How’s that for an effective program?
Then there is the matter of a very limited audit which found tens of thousands of dollars had been misspent by NCBA and that the financial firewall between marketing and lobbying had been breached.
What of the $2.6 million embezzlement of Oklahoma Beef Council funds? There are simply insufficient accounting checks and oversight of the checkoff program.
And yes, there is an ideological element here. Many producers support COOL, a GIPSA rule that would provide meaningful transparency and remedies; a halt to trade agreements that result in trade deficits in beef/cattle; and a checkoff that is abused—even if Pete feels the dollar per head is not a “budget buster.”
Comparing objections to the checkoff to a desire not to pay income taxes is, kindly, a sophomoric argument. — AZNMCowboy
