Keep Your Commie Hands Off Our Food
Why DSA's government-run grocery stores should terrify everyone who eats.
My mother used to bake tomato soup cake, a moist spice cake requiring no eggs or milk.
"It's a depression cake," she explained, giving me the false impression eating must have been great during the Great Depression. In reality: the dust bowl and depression of the 1930s forced many Americans to struggle for nourishment.
Food is so abundant in America today that Depression-era dining sounds almost charming. It wasn't. We must avoid any scenario that shakes food security.
We're so disconnected from agriculture that we've forgotten some basic truths: producing food is hard work, and moving food from farm to table is a complex system with many interdependent parts. As proof, recall how quickly stores went empty during Covid. The supply chain faced a few kinks and within days, food access changed.
Control Food Access, Control Society
That is why we—you and I—should already be screaming "Stop!" at the top of our lungs over the wretched attempt to implement government run grocery stores around the nation. Communist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and failed Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, both with limited life experience and no agriculture background, want to rework major links in the fragile food chain they clearly know nothing about.
Consider Hong's handiwork in the Wisconsin State Assembly. In March, Hong and Rep. Ryan Clancy co-sponsored a bill to create the Wisconsin Public Food Administration Authority. The bill is dead now, but Hong would have surely resurrected it if elected governor this November. (She narrowly lost in last night's upset primary.)
The plan is a massive overhaul of the state's supply chain affecting almost everything connected to agriculture.
The authority's mission is to "ensure universal access to affordable, nutritious food by supporting local governments in the development and operation of public grocery stores and operating a statewide public food distribution network that lowers costs, stabilizes prices, supports workers, and prioritizes food-insecure communities."
Wisconsin already has a well-working food distribution network, including a robust charitable food plan, but the socialists want to tinker with it.
The proposed Food Authority would administer a statewide public food distribution network—disrupting the existing market—to distribute products to its grocery stores, public schools, and state buildings like prisons.
Price Fixing
It's worth remembering what DSA planned to do if they won Wisconsin's gubernatorial election. Under Hong's plan, Wisconsin would use tax dollars to do what private grocery stores already do: make bulk buys of groceries and negotiate the cost of food from distributers. But the government will fix the prices, giving its stores an unfair advantage that will upset the delicate food system.
Note that before politics, Hong briefly owned a restaurant that failed. The college drop-out does not understand economics and it shows in this bill requiring the authority to fix pricing.
"The price of a product generally may not exceed 5 percent of the amount paid to acquire the product. Additionally, the authority may authorize a price that is up to 30 percent under the amount paid to acquire a product for food-insecure areas that the authority determines are priority; for products that the authority designates as staple goods; for limited promotional periods; for states of emergency; or for other periods, as determined by the authority," the proposal read.
Milk is certainly a staple. At this writing, a gallon of whole milk retails for $4.81 in Milwaukee, according to the USDA Marketing Service. The estimated wholesale cost (after processing and bottling) is $2.55. Subtract 30 percent (.77 cents) and the cost of a gallon of milk at a Wisconsin government store would be $1.78 a gallon.
Farmers are currently getting $18.76 per hundredweight—the amount paid for 100 pounds of milk, which equals 11.6 gallons. The farmer gets $1.61 per gallon, just 17 cents less than Hong would charge.
Turns out, when you remove profit from the equation, as communists wish, the cost is lower. But with no profit in your pocket, it is still too costly to buy.
The effects of artificially low costs at government grocers will ripple across the industry, crushing private retailers, food processors, and farmers. Socialists want businesses to fail so the government can step in and "seize the means of production." Milk is a staple. Better let the government handle it if private business can't keep up, socialists will say. After that, the government controls what you eat, how much you get, and the cost.
Free Stuff and High Pay
There's more to Hong's plan that makes less sense. It requires government grocers to provide customers with free internet access and "free high-quality, nontoxic menstrual products; and to compensate employees with prevailing or collectively bargained wages."
Larger stores will offer a full-service section with hot food prepared daily, a cafeteria and a seating area for shoppers to eat meals, a coffee shop, a full-service bakery, a full-service pharmacy, a community center, a study area, childcare, an affordable public or social housing development, and access to health care or mental health care.
The math doesn't work on the retail side but add higher wages and free stuff and the plan really slams a wrecking ball into capitalism—exactly what communists want.
Protect the Food Supply
Starvation in the United States is almost unthinkable today and we want it to stay that way. Recent generations have not lived through famine or widespread food shortages because we have a good system with safety nets for the needy already in place. But we should always be on guard to protect those who would weaken our food system.
A small and declining number of farmers and food processors feed a growing American population and through exports, feed the world. We can't afford to put any out of business.
We must prevent those who intend to dismantle U.S. food security from gaining further political power.
The false promise of public grocers leads to a broken food system and the real threat of starvation. This may be the most important political issue of your life.
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