Estate Tax Battles, Butter Wars, and Royal Outrage: Animal Ag’s Growing Panic | Rising Anxieties

And unfortunately, we also have to cover more and more these days a bit of what is worrying us about them, because there's a lot. You know, I have to say though, I'm not well known for hope, and I don't know why I would feel it right now, but I just feel like they are reaching their limit, or getting closer to their limit. I just feel like things could turn. I just feel like there's a sense of after years of basic inertia, uh, well, anyway, um, I'll, I'll get into details now. I won't pontificate anymore. Uh, okay.

Our first article is the thing that the, you know, I'm, I'm recording this on Monday, and I don't know whether the big beautiful bill, as they call it, though it's a monstrosity, has passed. But you will be hearing this on Tuesday, so you will know. And regardless, I think this is an important factor. This is from Drovers Beef Producers urge Congress to vote yes on Big Beautiful Bill to deliver tax relief.

And this is, I think there's probably a lot of stuff in there that is benefiting animal ag, but this is probably the really big one. This story, which is by Angie Stump Denton, beef producers are urging Congress to vote yes on big, beautiful Bill to deliver tax relief and help farmers and ranchers stay in business for generations to come. Yeah. What they wanna do is build dynasties and they have, you know, done pretty well with that to date. And, you know, I remember when estate taxes used to be something that ordinary people worried about, but you know, once millionaires started worrying about them, the numbers became so big that the rest of us, like, it's not even an issue. But it wasn't really that long ago that estate taxes were a thing, like somebody died and, and that was an opportunity where the, the government has an interest in taking money, you know, to offset maybe income taxes or whatever. Because estate taxes are, you know, they are many things to many people.

Some people love them, some people hate them. I'm not sure anybody loves them, but I think they're a good thing, to keep, you know, generational wealth from like accumulating and accumulating and accumulating until we, until we ended up in a country where there were all these billionaires, we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?

Alright, so, uh, beef producers aren't agreeing with that concept, that's for sure. They want, um, this bill to pass, so it will deliver lasting tax relief and allow farmers and ranchers to keep more of their hard earned money. Uh, yeah. The rest of us are apparently just, you know, like dicking around, uh, but they're earning their money and so they should be able to give it to their kids.

Montana Cattle producer Garrett Harshbarger says, let's keep ranching lands in ranching hands. The only way we can do it is through passing the one big beautiful bill and ensuring future generations don't pay extreme taxes on their family land. Yeah, let's keep it in the family.

Well, you know, if we're gonna keep it in the family, why does it have to be yours? We've all got families. Uh uh, and, you know, it's a lot of white faces here. I'm not sure everybody's white, but a lot of white faces here. Uh, that wasn't too long ago this land all belonged to somebody else, though my understanding is Native Americans didn't really have this concept of owning land, which would've been one of those really good things if we had adopted, I think. But I'm digressing. I'm opining on, on policy choices that I don't really, uh, know that much about. But I do want to point out what kind of money we're talking about. Like I said, I used to remember when estate taxes were something ordinary people worried about. Now, the limit, the current limit, in 2025 is, um for an individual, 13.99 million you can pass on without paying any taxes. For a married couple that's, uh, you know, just twice of that 27.98 million. Though, that's part of the last Trump tax cuts and it would expire without the passage of the big beautiful bill and go back to the much more modest amounts of, uh, around $7 million per individual.

So, like I said, most of us don't have to really be terribly concerned about this issue, except for when we're looking at other people and whether we're allowing them to build dynasties based on generational wealth, what they will keep in their family, taking up American lands, uh, and, and using them to torture animals.

Uh, it doesn't seem like the right policy to me. The one big, beautiful bill would not only extend those, those, uh, exemptions, they would increase them by about a million dollars, 15 million per individual and 30 million for married couples. So, yeah, you will, you listening to this, probably no more than I do about what actually happened, but you know, it's not too much doubt at this point, but you never know.

All right, dairy, this is an interesting story. Have you ever heard of Country Crock? Is that a big company? They sell apparently butter. Um, all right. They've just started a dairy free butter and, uh, I think they're a big company. I kind of looked it up, um, but you know, I never heard of them.

Dairy free butter is a crock. Butter makers urge for FDA crackdown. All right, this is from Dairy Herd Management, and the subtitle here is The American Butter Institute. I don't know why that strikes me funny. The Butter Institute is urging the FDA to crack down on Country Crock's dairy-free butter label, calling it misleading, and a direct violation of federal standards that define butter as a milk-based product.

This is by Taylor Leach. I do see these packages. I've never tried this stuff, but I'm willing to, 'cause it seems to be totally vegan. They just say it's dairy free. But I looked at the ingredients and I'm not swearing to it, but I really think it was totally vegan. It is pretty small print.

I'll have to say where it says dairy free, but that's fine with me. It's right on there. Uh, it is right on there. And that's really the question, is it a misleading label or isn't it a misleading label? But that's not what these people think is the question. According to butter makers, it's not butter, it's a crock.

Get it? You know how they use the word crock? It's so clever... alright. This article points out under federal law, butter must be made from milk. 'Cause there are these federal standards of products. But, all of the cases so far, what they really point out is the federal government doesn't own the language.

I mean, that would be ridiculous, right? They can't define what people are allowed to call things, how people are allowed to speak. They can insist that people not be deceived. So that is why most of these cases revolve around, uh, labeling, you know, does the label make it clear? And, you know, most of the labels that I, I look for make it really clear because that's what I'm looking for.

But you know, that's not what they think. Uh, they think that under federal law butter must be made from milk. And, if you let plant-based spreads label themselves as butter, it erodes consumer trust. Well, no, it doesn't. If it makes clear that it's plant-based, don't you see that? No, they don't. Um, and then it erodes the integrity of food labeling.

No, it doesn't. As long as the label makes it clear. Unbelievable. They're going to the FDA and we'll see what happened. The FDA has not yet responded to the complaint from the American Butter Institute. But America's butter makers are clear if it's not made from milk, don't call it butter.

Well, you know, I don't give a shit what America's butter makers say. Like, let's wait until the FDA chimes in and then it'll probably go to court.

Um, alright. this is a good one. It really is. Those Brits... I love England, I love English tv. On the rare occasions I've been able to, I loved visiting England, but the royal family, oy. You know, there's a little bit left of the, uh, Irish Catholic in me. Animal rights fanatics PETA are branded disgusting and outlandish for hitting out at William and Kate because they allowed their dog to have puppies. They allowed their dog to have puppies. Did it just happen? Did they say, okay, honey, go out.

I know you love him. Um, alright. Outspoken animal rights activists who targeted, targeted, look, listen to the language. This, this is from the Daily Mail, so, you know, targeted Prince William and Kate for breeding their cocker spaniels. All right. Now they're not allowing them. Now they're actually breeding them, which are they condemned as doctrinaire fanatics.

So, all right. The Prince and Princess of Wales, which is what they like to call themselves, were branded staggeringly out of touch. That's basically what PETA said about them, that they were staggeringly out of touch... in a provocative statement. Well, that's what's provocative about, I guess.

Like the language that PETA used compared to the language that everybody else is using against them is unbelievable. The firebrand us group said nobody should be churning out a litter when shelters were full of dogs needing homes in a so-called animal homelessness crisis. Well, they say so-called then.

PETA is the one who said animal homelessness crisis. I, I, I need to read these stories better. Critics of PETA hit back. And this is where you get the real, like, like all they said was that they were staggeringly out of touch and that there was an homelessness crisis. Um, they were described as an extremist group, animal rights terrorists, um, themselves, staggeringly out of touch, uh, outspoken.

One of the things they pointed out, which I didn't even know this 'cause I really don't keep track of the British royal family, was that the Prince might well take a lesson from King Charles and Queen Camilla, who have chosen to adopt from a shelter. Well, that's nice. I'm really glad to hear that.

But conservative MP Andrew Rosendale, the former Shadow Minister for Animal Welfare. Well, thank God he is not anymore, has written to the Charity Commission to call for PETA's charity status to be revoked. Oh my God, I shouldn't laugh 'cause you know, the next week it'll happen. Oh my God. Then it goes on and on about how, how much everybody, all these people who have lady in front of their name hate PETA, uh, ridiculous.

Boy, they, it's just people really, really get their back. Well, I'm, I, I was gonna say, they get their backup when anybody criticizes their attitudes towards animals, but I think having the royal family in there does mix things up a little bit. And, you know, the Daily Mail is, is known for a little over the top language.

All right, here's the one that just made me crazy. Makes me furious. It really does. I, this, this article makes me so upset. It's not anything bad that happened. Well, you know, except in the overall sense that bad things happen all the time. So don't worry. But, uh, it's just the attitude. And, you know, to be fair, this woman actually believes this.

This is by Courtney Henderson. It's a column that she wrote about herself in Hordes Dairyman. When you give a kid a calf. She works on a dairy farm. I mean, she's a sixth generation farmer. You know, I bet they're among the ones who don't wanna be paying those estate taxes, uh, 'cause they like to keep that money in the family.

So she decided that she wanted to share her passion for the dairy industry with the kids and parents in her community. So she started a four H Dairy club. On some field trip recently, I guess the kids were coming to her farm. Uh, I'm not sure, but before it began, one of my girls went over to one of the calves.

These are calves... you can see in the, there's a picture and you can see in the background that there's all these hutches, you know, these are calves that are in standard calf hutches that you've seen in the pictures and made you wanna cry. And so one of the girls that, one of these innocent kids, this four H thing.

She went up to a calf who she saw at a hutch and started petting the little heifer coming up with names to call her. Pretty soon we threw a halter on her and let them walk around for a while. The girl fell in love with the heifer, and I concluded what happens when you give a kid a calf. Talk about... these are baby animals who have been taken away from their mothers and live in these pathetic little hutches until they are put into production.

She goes on, when you give a kid a calf, they're going to wanna name it, they will wanna pet the calf. They will stand outside of the hutch for half an hour petting it and talking to it. I remember being a, a girl that age and, feeling so, such a connection to animals and always wanting to own animals.

You just reiterate how the world sees animals and you put your own love into it. And that's exactly what this girl is doing. She's being told, this is how you love a, a calf. You take her away from her mother, put her in this horrible little hutch where she has to live, and then occasionally take her for a walk and name her, because you sense the sadness of her life and you wanna make it better because that's just the way it is.

So you have to show them how to put the halter on. Then you watch as they get to know each other for two hours. You smile as you hear the laughter coming from the child, as the calf bunks or licks them after a couple of hours, you know, the calf needs a break from the heat and you put the calf back.

The kid asks, can I come back tomorrow? Because the kid loves his calf. Unbelievable. And according to, uh, this babe, your heart swells as you nod, the kid runs away happy and you laugh at yourself because you would've never guessed how wonderful it would be to give a kid a calf. I mean, if anything, for me brings up the Hannah Errant phrase the banality of evil, which I know I say often, but this is it.

Boy, this is it. That article makes me sick. All right, that's it for this week's Rising Anxieties. And, uh, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite. Pod catcher or you can subscribe on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube.

we will not actually have an interview this coming Friday, the 4th of July next week. I'm looking forward to interviewing John Sanbonmatsu about his new book, which is just out, I can't wait for this interview. It's called The Omnivores Deception, What we Get Wrong About Meat, Animals and Ourselves.

I'm partway onto it. So far it's outstanding. and hope you have a great fourth where we can all barbecue some food that isn't made of outta dead animals or their secretions, and hopefully remind others of what they're eating. So at least try to ruin their day. and I think we could all take a moment to think about what America needs to become, fast, really in the near future. Thanks for tuning in.