July 7, 2009 10:06AM # A New Regulation I Can Support By [Sallie James](https://www.cato.org/people/sallie-james) --- SHARE Normally I would be happy to leave labelling decisions to retailers and manufacturers, but here’s a proposal for a new mandatory labelling scheme that I can get behind. James Gibney, a reporter from *the Atlantic*, called me last week to ask some questions about [dairy supports](http://www.freetrade.org/node/538). He was preparing a [blog post](http://ideas.theatlantic.com/2009/07/tell_americans_what_theyre_really_paying_for_their_food.php) to propose a new labelling idea that might help break the frustrating stranglehold that the farm lobby has over U.S. agricultural policy. Here’s James’ idea: To wit, every product whose ingredients benefit from a subsidy should include the following language on the label: > “This product has been subsidized by the U.S. government at taxpayer expense. For more information, please visit usda​.gov.” And every product that benefits from tariff protection should have the following language on the label: > “This product is protected from foreign competition by U.S. import tariffs. Its price is higher as a result. For more information, please visit usitc​.gov.” I like it. For more on Cato’s work on agricultural policy, see [here](http://www.freetrade.org/issues/agriculture) and [here](https://www.cato.org/subtopic_display_new.php?topic_id=1&ra_id=2). ##### 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/).