Despite lingering worries about food shortages, a Republican-backed proposal aims to tighten government control over the milk industry in Pennsylvania by increasing penalties for milk dealers.
Representative Marci Mustello (R-11) has announced she will soon re-introduce legislation to increase penalties in lieu of suspending milk dealer licenses.
The legislation, formerly House Bill 2456, aims to raise the payment in lieu of suspending a milk dealer (processor) license from $150/day to $1,000/day.
In a House memorandum, Mustello notes that the Milk Marketing Board, a board chaired by Robert N. Barley, co-owner of a dairy farm in Conestoga, requested the legislation to increase penalties and fines on milk dealers. Barley was appointed to the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2018.
“The Milk Marketing Law contains a provision that permits the Milk Marketing Board to accept a payment in lieu of suspending a license when a milk dealer violates a provision of law or regulation. This provision is designed to penalize a milk dealer for violations, but at the same time, continue the flow of milk from the cow to the consumer,” the memoranda said. “While license suspensions are not common and result only after other avenues and penalty categories have been applied or exhausted, the current payment in lieu of suspension is often treated as a cost of doing business and is therefore not a deterrent for violations.”
Milk dealer licenses can be revoked by the state for such offenses as selling milk below “minimum pricing” or below “minimum price bidding.”
While the Republican Party often criticizes the Democrats as the party of socialism and government overreach, Republican proposals such as Mustello’s reveal the GOP is not averse to setting prices, manipulating the market, and intervening to penalize violations of manmade market regulations.
Last August, WJAC reported on concerns of a food shortage in “the coming months.” Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding acknowledged those concerns but remained optimistic.
“There are clearly pockets of pain across the state,” Redding said. “We’ve seen it this year. Mainly more than others, because of some of the climate related issues, the flood issues and Ukraine situation. I think the sensitivity on the front side of the production year, with extremely high costs and how the markets will respond. I look at all of that, that is all true.”
In 1944, the Austrian-British economist F.A. Hayek published a book entitled The Road to Serfdom. In it, he warned of the road to serfdom that government control of markets would lead Western nations down. Hayek argued that the central planning and state control inherent in German Nazism were being enacted by the English and American governments, respectively. Market control and economic manipulation were central to Hayek’s concern.
“Hayek’s thesis in The Road to Serfdom is that one intervention inevitably leads to another,” Gerald O’Driscoll Jr., a senior fellow at Cato Institute, wrote. “The unintended consequences of each market intervention are economic distortions, which generate further interventions to correct them. That interventionist dynamic leads society down the road to serfdom.”
Mustello is calling on other House members to co-sponsor the legislation to increase penalties for milk dealers in Pennsylvania.
Chris Hume is the host of The Lancaster Patriot Podcast and the author of several books, including Seven Statist Sins. He can be reached at info@thelancasterpatriot.com.
One of the great things about The Lancaster Patriot is that much more often than not, you can read a news article and have no idea what are the writer’s personal opinions about the subject. Not so here. While one might agree with those opinions, respectfully, they belong in the Perspectives section.
Erik, I appreciate your comments and understand what you are saying. Which part of the piece would you say is opinion? (No doubt the quotes from Mustello, Redding, Hayek, and O’Driscoll provide their own opinions, which are different from one another.) The only paragraph that I think could be interpreted as the opinion of the writer is this one: “While the Republican Party often criticizes the Democrats as the party of socialism and government overreach, Republican proposals such as Mustello’s reveal the GOP is not averse to setting prices, manipulating the market, and intervening to penalize violations of manmade market regulations.” However, I would contend that is not opinion at all, but fact. And the article does not state whether or not price setting, etc. is wrong. It simply states that the GOP affirms it despite saying gov’t should get out of manipulating business (which they undeniably do when critiquing the Dems; again that is a fact, not opinion) and states that there are other thinkers who oppose that sort of thing. Thanks for interacting, I always appreciate the feedback.