Angus 62, I believe at least three of those are groups which were against the Beef Check-Off from the beginning and have worked to end it from that time.
You are painting a large number of cattle producers including many who have earned excellent reputations for their honesty and integrity, as well as for the quality of their cattle, as being dishonest, it seems to me. I'm sorry you feel that way.
My husband and our families, our parents and grandparents all have depended on raising cattle for our living since before 1892 in this area and we have had family members of NCBA and the predecessor organizations from the early days of those groups. We have personally been acquainted with a very large number of them and have known many of them to be very fine people and it is disturbing to hear them called dishonest.
And it is even more disturbing to hear that after the number of audits, some routine, and some demanded by those against the Beef Check-Off. And NO elicit activities have been discovered. The firewall has been shown to be effective. The errors have gone both ways, sometimes favoring NCBA and some favoring the Check-Off. Corrections and adjustments to the funds have been made as appropriate. The fact of the contracts being on a cost recovery basis only has, imo, made the process complicated, yet it is the right thing for the cattle business, also imo.
The most disturbing thing about all this is that those groups attacking the Beef Check-Off asked for and are using money from the HSUS to fight the Beef Check-Off. That should tell us that the Check-Off is too successful for that bunch that works to end all uses of animals, whether as pets, companions, or food! It was a sad day for the entire food animal industries when that happened!
mrj