Rep. Thomas Massie: We Need to Pass The Prime Act to Cut Beef Costs

EXCERPT:

MASSIE: “I’m afraid that what the president did with the announcement of bringing in 300 metric tons — 300,000 metric tons of beef from overseas is that he's diddling with capitalism and now the signal to farmers is, whoa, it might not be profitable to keep your heifers and rebuild the herd. So, yeah, we need the Prime Act that basically just says, if you are a small processor and you're only selling within your state, you don’t need the federal government’s permission to do that transaction. You could be regulated at the county level or the state level like restaurants are, you know, they have a local health inspector goes in, gives you a grade, puts it on the wall, people can decide, 'Do I went to eat at at a B- establishment or am I gonna keep looking for an A+?' And we could do the same thing with the small local processors. It would be safe, it would be local, accountable. It's in the farm bill, in the House version of the farm bill. You know, we talked about what’s going to happen before the midterms and after the midterms. The Senate needs to put the Prime Act. If people are watching this, call your senators and tell them, put the Prime Act in the Senate farm bill so it matches the House farm bill. That’s the real solution."