May 19, 2008 2:09PM # Milk Madness By [Chris Edwards](https://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards) --- SHARE You don’t have to be a libertarian to be amazed at the way the government’s many tentacles often work at cross-purposes. The [*Wall Street Journal* reports today](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121116943280903029.html?mod=fox_australian) on the U.S. milk industry: > Federal regulators are investigating allegations that the nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, has manipulated milk and cheese prices … the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is looking into whether DFA sought to drive up the price of milk.… Manipulating milk and cheese prices! Driving up prices! It’s a good thing that we have the government to help protect us from such abuses. Oh, wait a minute. The federal Department of Agriculture runs an [extensive array of marketing orders, import controls, and other programs to squelch dairy competition and keep prices artifically high](https://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb_0707_47.pdf). ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Department of Agriculture](https://www.cato.org/department-agriculture), [Downsizing Government](https://www.cato.org/downsizing-government) [![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/).