Taxation without Representation
October 31, 2005 By Terry A Stevenson

When Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns announced that the USDA was going to appoint a livestock industry consortium to operate the proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS), there was no corresponding commitment for the government to pay for it. The fact that there is no funding for the program, highlights some of the questions that remain unanswered.

Presumably the proposed consortium will collect fees for its services from the participants. These participants would primarily be livestock producers. If the legal precedent of the Supreme Court ruling on the Beef Checkoff applies to an animal identification program, then the fees collected will be regarded as taxes. These would be a fees imposed by order of the government. This situation would put the consortium in the position of being a tax collector. The fees collected would not go to the government, but would only be used to cover the consortiums "expenses."

"Taxation without representation" was a rallying cry during the American War for Independence. Now is not the time to reinstitute the practice. As much as we like to decry the government for its waste, inefficiency, apathy, and even corruption, there is no other institution or organization in the country that can claim universal representation of its citizenry except the government. No organization, not even a consortium of organizations, can accurately claim to represent all livestock producers in this country except the federal government. If a fee is imposed upon livestock producers without the explicit authorization of their representatives in Congress, then it will be "taxation without representation." If a consortium running the NAIS imposes the fee, then an unauthorized non-governmental agency will be exercising prerogatives that belong only to the government.

Of course we should also ask why the USDA is not providing funding to implement the NAIS. The first part of the answer is rather simple. Only Congress can authorize such an expenditure and it has not. Why not? One of the first items Congress would surely ask to see would be a cost/benefit analysis for the program. None has yet been made public. Should the promoters bring one forward it would certainly be compared to the cost/benefit analysis made of Country of Origin Labeling. Such a comparison could prove to be very embarrassing. There is almost a one-to-one relationship between those who support mandatory animal identification and those who opposed mandatory COOL. It's hard to explain why tracking an animal's country of origin is too expensive, but tracking every move it ever makes is not. It's hard to explain why NAIS should be mandatory, but COOL should be voluntary. The only way to avoid embarrassing questions is not to ask Congress for funding for NAIS. If NAIS were subjected to Congressional debate like COOL has been, the program might be in jeopardy.

Most of us don't like the government doing more. It sounds much better when we hear that something is going to be left up to the private sector. But that is not the whole picture. The economic equivalent of a dictatorship is a monopoly. The economic equivalent of an election is competition. A sanctioned monopoly that pretends to represent all interests is no better than a political dictatorship. Representative government is better than private monopoly. The true cost of granting the operation of NAIS to a private monopoly is our own liberty, and nothing less.

Some have suggested that we are making much out of a simple government contract. Unfortunately, there is no government contract here. A contract would require the exchange of money between the government and the contractor. No such thing would take place in this situation. In some third world countries the government "hires" public employees but pays them no wages. The government simply expects the "employee" who performs the public service to live on what he "collects" from the people he serves. We don't need to be like those third world countries.

Another Congressional challenge we can imagine is the question as to why the NAIS is necessary. We are told that we need to be able to trace animal origins and movements within 48 hours. In its one test on December 23, 2003 the federal government failed to do so. For states, however, the results have been different. Many states can and have traced animal movements quite quickly, much faster than federal government has.

The NCBA has said that in planning the NAIS it will "respect the systems that states already have in place." In the State of Wyoming the State Veterinarians office was blindsided by Mike Johanns announcement that a private consortium would be running the NAIS program. Furthermore, Wyoming State Statute 11-17-118 prohibits the State Livestock Board from transferring animal identification information to any but a government entity which can demonstrate exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. What will the operating consortium do when it is faced with Wyoming's statute? If it is private and has no governmental authority then it can do nothing. NAIS cannot work without state cooperation.