Deep underground in Missouri lies a secret that would make any cheese lover's heart flutter: hundreds of thousands of pounds of American cheese. But get this - it's all government-owned. That's right, the government owns a stockpile of cheese that could rival any dairy farm in America. How did this happen, you ask? Well, let me tell you. Back in the 70s, there was a national dairy shortage and the government decided to intervene. They poured billions of dollars into the dairy industry to motivate production and alleviate the crisis. And it worked, but maybe a little too well. Dairy farmers were now motivated to produce as much as they could, and the government was there to buy up the excess.
By the early 80s, the government owned over 500 million pounds of dairy and dairy byproducts . That's right, 500 million pounds. So, what do you do with all that ? Well, you turn it into a longer-lasting dairy product: cheese. Thus, "government cheese" was born, and the federal government distributed these cheese blocks through the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). It was given away for free by pickup to people at food banks, community centers, and so on.
But wait, there's more. It's been nearly half a century since the dairy crisis, and yet the government is still propping up big dairy.
You'd think they would have learned their lesson by now, but no. They continue to subsidize dairy, leading to overproduction and a surplus of cheese that has to be stored in underground caves. Maybe it's time for the government to focus on something else, like...I don't know, space travel, renewable energy, affordable housing, or possibly healthcare? Just a thought. But hey, at least we have "government cheese" to remind us of the good ol' days when the government had this amount of additional funding to help out its people when in need, seems like it's been vastly misappropriated for almost half a century with funding that could have went to literally anything else besides the storage and upkeep of now nearing 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in converted limestone tunnels underneath roughly 700 acres in Missouri, but hey who's to judge right?
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