Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday – Subsidizing Oregon’s Cheese Trail

Topline: Early settlers on the Oregon Trail were searching for a new home and economic opportunity, not hundreds of kinds of artisan cheeses. By 2011, the U.S. government was funding the latter with a $50,400 grant for the “Oregon Cheese Trail,” a tourist trap promotion for the state’s dairy farms and restaurants. The money would be worth $72,000 today.

The Cheese Trail? Seriously?

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses. 

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.   

Coburn’s Wastebook 2011 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $7 billion, including the cheesy spending.

Key facts: The U.S. Department of Agriculture grant was paid to the Oregon Cheese Guild to create a self-guided “epic road trip” around Oregon’s creameries. Guild board member Pete Kent told Seattle Weekly the money was needed because farms were struggling to accommodate visitors on land meant for goats and cows.

Kent also claimed that Oregon’s cheese industry was “growing along the same lines as beer and wine,” but he may have been mistaken. There were 18 cheese production facilities in Oregon in 2011, the same number of stops on the Cheese Trail 14 years later.

The state’s tourism website boasts, “You’ll find no less than a whopping 250 varieties of sheep, cow and goat cheeses made in Oregon, and you can seek them out all over the state on the Oregon Cheese Trail.”

Where did the money come from?

The Cheese Trail was funded through the federal Farmers Market Promotion Program, which funds agricultural businesses and food councils. Sixty grantees received a total of $14.2 million in fiscal year 2024.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: As many kinds of cheese as there are in Oregon, there are sadly even more ways the government has found to waste money on unnecessary projects.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.