Correspondence to DOGE on Beef Checkoff

April 8, 2025

To the Members of the House DOGE Caucus:

The Montana Cattlemen’s Association would like to provide DOGE our members’ perspective on the National Beef Checkoff which is a USDA guided program.

The mandatory $1.00 a head tax paid on each ownership transfer forces us to fund the highly suspect activities of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).  The NCBA receives the majority of the funds issued to contractors of the Beef Checkoff.  It is a well-known fact that the NCBA has a lobbying staff with permanent offices in Washington D.C.  Their lobbying efforts have increasingly favored the processor segment of the Cattle/Beef industry and not the Cattle Producer segment.  Without legitimate OIG audits we do not know if any of these checkoff funds are used in these lobbying efforts.  The Act and Order of the Beef Checkoff specifically says these funds cannot be used for such political actions.

As this is a mandatory tax paid by our members, we are entitled to receive annual audits about how this revenue is being spent.  Since 2016, the Freedom of Information Act has been reformed by the Improvement Act signed by President Obama.  This law put a 25-year limit on the ability of any Federal agency to withhold documents.  We need and are guaranteed a detailed independent audit on the National Beef Checkoff from enactment in 1986 to December 31, 2000 under this Act with NO redactions.

We are outraged by the fact that the National Beef Checkoff is the only taxpayer funded program that is NOT audited by an Office of Inspector General [OIG].  The internal audits currently provided by the checkoff are not published and would not meet General Acceptable Accounting Principles (GAAP).

If discrepancies and violations contrary to the Beef Checkoff Act and Order of 1985 are found with these legitimate audits, collection of these mandatory taxes should be halted immediately.

Thank you for this opportunity to express our Montana cattle producers’ concerns about the operation of this Checkoff funded by them.

Yours Truly,

Richard Liebert

President, Montana Cattlemen’s Association