September 23, 2009 11:21AM # Breaking: Economics 101 Still in Effect By [Sallie James](https://www.cato.org/people/sallie-james) --- SHARE [Dairy farmers are working lobbying hard](http://brownfieldagnews.com/2009/09/22/missouri-dairymen-seek-federal-help/) to ensure they get their hands on more of your money. Apparently, changes made last year to the [Milk Income Loss Contract](http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=prsu&topic=mpp-mi) — mainly to take account of rising feed costs — were not enough to stem the losses. The Senate recently voted to give the USDA an extra $350 million for dairy farmers’ support. The House left dairy support out of its appropriations bill, so the two chambers are working on the compromise now (prediction: the taxpayer will get screwed). Here’s an ironic quote from a *Brownfield* news post yesterday (linked to above). It’s Missouri Dairy Association Chairman Larry Purdom on how to bring prices back up: > “Our feeling is that if \[USDA\] would buy some cheese and product that’s in storage…hanging over our heads, depressing prices,” Purdom tells Brownfield from his farm at Purdy, Missouri, “we feel like the prices would start moving on their own if we didn’t have this surplus.” More on U.S. dairy policy [here](http://www.freetrade.org/node/538). ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).