Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

Mr. Smith flips off Washington
Sen. Bob Smith deserts the GOP in the middle of his long-shot bid for the presidency.
By Jake Tapper
[07/14/99]

Free-for-all at Free Republic
Lucianne Goldberg, Matt Drudge and other friends abandon the Clinton-bashing Web site over its attacks on George W. Bush.
By Jeff Stein
[07/13/99]

City slickers
New Orleans, Boston, Detroit and Alameda County, Calif., are suing gun manufacturers and dealers for distributing what they deem a dangerous product -- and then turning around and selling guns themselves.
By Jake Tapper
[07/13/99]

Selective service
Republican presidential contenders, except for John McCain, stumble over questions of their Vietnam-era military service.
By Joe Conason
[07/13/99]

Run, Hillary, run
The first lady should run for the Senate, so she can be asked the ethical questions she's so far evaded.
By Christopher Hitchens
[07/12/99]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The New York Times headlined its report "Hillary Clinton Sides With New York Dairy Farmers on Milk Price Cartel," a protective spin that all but obscured the real import of her decision. It left an impression on casual readers that Hillary was standing up for farmers, a comfortable fit for her political profile.

In fact, the milk cartel -- otherwise known as the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact -- is a creation of government bureaucrats and farm interests to artificially drive up the price of milk, a commodity that is crucial to the health and well-being of the nation's children, whose champion Hillary purports to be. The real rationale behind the milk cartel is to protect inefficient Northeast milk producers against the more efficient producers of the Midwest who -- if market forces were allowed free play -– would drive down the price of milk and make it more available to those who can afford it least.

Consumer advocates estimate that the bill behind which the first lady has thrown her considerable weight will raise the price of a gallon of milk by 50 cents. This represents an almost a 20 percent hike in the already artificially inflated cost. This tax on consumers will fall most heavily on the poor. The bill is expected to put $74,000 in the pocket of every New York farmer, well-heeled and struggling alike. Clinton's likely opponent, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, opposes the rip-off and has bucked Gov. George Pataki and other Republican legislators in the state to fight it.

Defenders of the dairy compact claim, of course, that it is a defense of struggling farmers. But since the compact was created last year, farm failures in New England have increased 25 percent. The main beneficiaries of the price gouge will be the well-off farms that have survived.

Next page | Republicans are in bed with the dairy cartel, too