sw said:
OT,
As the law reads, none of the money is to be used for political lobbying. It is to be used for beef promotion and research. All I want to know is do they want checkoff dollars or not? If they do then they have to stop making everything political and start promoting beef and being involved in research. MCA has 2 seats on the Montana Beef Council at this time. They are now finding out how the checkoff works and it will really be something to see them at the Beef council booth during the MATE show to see if they are going to promote beef or RCALF
Thats exactly one of the things the total proposal said--- It called for R-CALF members to become more involved with the Beef Councils...
The Checkoff and CBB is a big boy now--they should be allowed to go out on their own- into their own offices and not be tied to any organization that leads a policy direction on cattle or beef or in the case of NCBA actively lobbys for and donates to political candidates- neither R-CALF or NCBA should have to hold their hand anymore.....They should be a lone nonpolitical entity.......
NCBA currently uses the checkoff and checkoff dollars as an advertising tool- many times crediting checkoff funded projects to the NCBA and often putting the NCBA logo on checkoff funded material...When I spoke with Monte Reese a few months ago he admitted this was a major concern of his- but it sounded like with the current NCBA checkoff domination his hands were partially tied...I expressed my concern to him that I believe if anything causes the checkoff to lose a court challenge it will be the tying of the NCBA name to the checkoff- especially because of NCBA's lobbying and political involvement..This is forcing checkoff payers to pay (taxing) to support a policy or political view which may be contrary to theirs...(And don't give me MRJ's not being federation or political committee or sub sub committee or whatever--Its all being done under the NCBA name)....
One of the major problems I've seen between R-CALF, LMA, OCM etc and the checkoff is that they knew they could not be actively involved...This 1987 date prohibited any from actively participating or using any checkoff funds for CBB approved projects....These checkoff dollars should be available to and used by all cattle and beef organizations to promote beef...These groups should be able to propose projects to the beef board for approval and contract to carry them out.....Yes - R-CALF should have access to CBB approved checkoff funding....
Like I said- times, views, and the direction of cattle producers are changing- and these cattle producers that are paying the bill expect the Checkoff to change with it......