Crisis de Jour: Milk Prices Could Climb to $8 a Gallon Next Year

Senator Robert Casey Jr. recently warned that the price of a gallon of milk could rise to $6 to $8 a gallon next year if Congress fails to pass a new farm bill before Jan. 1.

Casey, a Democrat, urged the Republican-led House to approve a Senate farm bill that passed overwhelmingly in June with bipartisan support.

"If the House doesn't take action, we could revert to a 1940s-era law that could waste taxpayer dollars and cause milk prices to skyrocket," he said. "By refusing to take up the farm bill, the House is forcing the Department of Agriculture to implement a dairy policy which is decades old. It could cost the government, by one estimate, $12 billion to $15 billion."

Under the law, the secretary of agriculture would be required to set federal price support subsidies at levels equivalent to those used in a 1949 law that Congress has overridden repeatedly in the decades since. Those levels are several times higher than current levels.

It seems that we go from crisis to crisis these days.  Whenever the next potential catastrophe approaches we look to our “leaders” in Government to solve these looming disasters.  Unfortunately, in many instances, they caused the problem in the first place. 

As you read above, the milk crisis is the result of a 1949 era law.  So why not simply eliminate the 1949 law?  No, the Government, once they have control of something, does not relinquish power that easily.  Instead, they do temporary “fixes” by passing bills that most have not read and most do not understand.  These solutions inevitably cause new predicaments, and more potential disasters our Government heroes will have to fix in the future.

In the last few years alone the Government has had a big hand in or is solely responsible for the Housing Crisis, the Financial Crisis, the Healthcare Crisis, the fiscal cliff crisis, the debt crisis, the Social Security crisis, the Medicare crisis, the Alternative Minimum Tax crisis, and so many other Government caused disasters or potential disasters that this Country literally goes from crisis to crisis. 

Partisan politicians blame each other for the next approaching calamity until they inevitably pass another last minute flawed bill, which they have not read, then pat each other on the back for their compromise.  Then, as they go on to their next created crisis, we the citizens wait for the inevitable fallout of their last minute solutions.

It is up to us to begin paying attention to force our Government officials to work on solving the real problems that they likely had a hand in creating, while getting them out of the affairs that they need not be involved in.