“If farmers are allowed to operate without unnecessary government intervention, American agriculture will continue to flourish, producing plentiful, safe, nutritious, and affordable food.” (Project 2025, Section 3.1: Department of Agriculture, Daren Bakst, page 321, paragraph 1.)

Next paragraph: 

“The USDA should recognize what should be self-evident: Agricultural production should first and foremost be focused on efficiently producing safe food. (Project 2025, Section 3.1: Department of Agriculture, Daren Bakst, page 321, paragraph 2.)

See the fundamental disconnect here? The primary reason we have safe food is BECAUSE of governmental regulations. The Boar’s Head plant in Virginia is just one recent example. The plant was at the center of a deadly listeria outbreak, which was linked to 9 deaths and 57 hospitalizations. In addition to shuttering its doors, the corporation is permanently discontinuing the production of liverwurst. [Source]¹

“It pains us to impact the livelihoods of hundreds of hard-working employees. We do not take lightly our responsibility as one of the area’s largest employers. But, under these circumstances, we feel that a plant closure is the most prudent course. We will work to assist each of our employees in the transition process.”

This is how deregulation costs jobs. 500 workers at this one plant alone² were displaced. In a town like Jarratt, VA, that’s devastating. Their entire population as of 2022³ was 935.

Was the incident actually linked to deregulation? It’s likely that it was DIRECTLY related. See this article: Trump administration allows pork slaughterhouses to have fewer USDA inspectors⁴ From the linked article:

“This rule puts industry profits ahead of public health,” said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy for the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group. He called the rule “a recipe for food safety disaster.”

So right on the first page of this section, we have a major disconnect from reality.

Aside from costing Americans jobs, deregulation has other unintended effects as well.

“The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 and the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 made it easier for railroads to abandon passenger service, which had been a financial drain. Amtrak started service in 1971, but it never made it to many remote and rural areas. Deregulation a few years later meant that railroads no longer had to offer passenger service in addition to freight. Most dropped it and soon pulled up unused tracks. That left rural people without service. Eventually, high fuel prices and global warming made Americans think about alternatives to automobiles. But by then, much of the passenger rail service was history.” [Source]⁵

Other examples?

“With the thought that a freer market would encourage new developments and improve service, Congress passed the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. For radio, that deregulation meant companies could own more stations in the same market — and as many as they wanted nationwide. The result? A few large companies own most commercial radio stations. Clear Channel is the giant, owning more than 850 stations across the country.”

This deregulation led to the completely homogenized and limited news and soulless, monotonous and repetitive music we hear on most radio. It also resulted in corporate ownership of news stations cutting jobs and reducing local news coverage. Result: A few large corporations control most of the information you get.

Need more? The Airline Deregulation act of 1978 is part of the reason that you rarely get full meals or legroom on planes any more, and why you’re being charged insane fees for checking in early, bringing baggage, etc. (See above linked source.)

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ended most oversight and regulations on cable television. As a result, after a decade, cable bills had increased by almost 60% in most places, and about 98% of Americans only had one cable company available to them to choose from.

Repealing the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act, resulted in the great recession of 2008, because of banks being suddenly allowed to promote risky lending practices and make bad loans. What started as a subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 quickly spread through most sectors of the economy, causing what is widely regarded as the worst financial crisis in the U.S. since the Great Depression.

Is deregulation ALWAYS bad? No. But for the most part, deregulation is playing a short game intended to increase profits and ignore risks, while regulations produce long-term success. So as we read this section, let’s keep that in mind. A cynic might argue that certain types of deregulation is in the government’s best interests because it results in very homogenized control of the media and the messaging we get.

Bakst goes on to argue generally for deregulation of the USDA and a limiting of its scope. For reference, the USDA’s scope of work includes distributing farm subsidies, running the food stamp program and other food-related welfare programs, and covers issues like conservation, biofuels, forestry, climate change impact, and more. The USDA employs more than 100,000 employees at more than 6,000 locations across the country and abroad. (Source: The USDA)

“The federal government does not need to transform the food system or develop a national plan to intervene across the supply chain. Instead, it should respect American farmers, truckers, and everyone who makes the food supply chain so resilient and successful. One of the important lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic was how critical it is to remove barriers in the food supply chain – not to increase them.” (Project 2025, Section 3.1: Department of Agriculture, Daren Bakst, page 324, paragraph 3.)

This claim suggests that the U.S. food supply chain is already effective and resilient, and that transformation or national-level planning is unnecessary. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant vulnerabilities in the food supply chain, such as disruptions in meatpacking plants, shortages of labor in agriculture and trucking, and difficulty in shifting food supplies from commercial to retail sectors. The pandemic highlighted weaknesses in the system that national coordination or transformation could address, such as improving worker protections, enhancing logistics, or diversifying supply chains.

To say that it’s “critical to remove barriers in the food supply chain” is oversimplifying. While some regulatory flexibility, such as relaxing transportation restrictions or allowing temporary worker visa programs, helped ease supply chain issues during the pandemic, other interventions were critical for public health and safety. For example, the government had to impose health and safety regulations in meatpacking plants to protect workers, many of whom were disproportionately affected by the virus. Additionally, government assistance, such as financial support for farmers and direct aid to food banks, was vital in preventing food shortages.

In fact, Trump’s deregulations of the food supply chain during COVID had some predictably terrible results, and in fact, the Trump administration was accused by House lawmakers of “exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to push [the Administration’s] reckless deregulatory agenda.” [Source]⁶

They were concerned that Trump’s sweeping deregulations were going to make communities less safe. And they were right.

“They rolled back everything they could get their hands on,” says Rena Steinzor, professor of administrative and food safety law at the University of Maryland. “And they couldn’t care less about workers.” Food policies aren’t the only ones getting reined in: The administration has also loosened clean air regulations and pollution reporting rules.” [Source]⁷

The article goes on to describe one of the results of Trump’s efforts as “faster chicken, with a side of tumors.” Before deregulation, poultry processors were required to dispose of chickens with lesions and tumors potentially caused by avian leukosis, a cancer-causing virus in chickens. After deregulation, slaughterhouses could just chop the tumors off and use the rest of the bird. Another result of the deregulation was removing standards for processing line speeds. Before deregulation, lines moved at a maximum pace of 140 birds per minute. After deregulation, 175 birds per minute.

“The carcasses move so fast that nobody can see if there’s something wrong with them, and processing them becomes even more injurious.”

More results of Trump’s pandemic deregulations? OSHA stopped tracking the spread of workplace illnesses. The EPA stopped policing pollution. Food labels were suddenly allowed to have inaccuracies. Regulations limiting long hours for truckers were lifted. See linked article above for details. As Winston Churchill famously said, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Bakst goes on to slam the Biden administration for “placing issues such as climate change and equity front and center”, ahead of “efficiency in food production.” How dare we prize equal rights and sustainable development over our God-given right to have tumors in our chicken?!