Photo: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, speaking at a Future Farmers of America event August 18, 2025 at the Tennessee State Fair. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘Confessions’, 1765.
Translation:
Finally, I remember the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who replied: “Let them eat brioche.”
A similar phrase has been falsely attributed Marie Antoinette, Queen of France from 1774 until 1792, by inserting the phrase, “Let them eat cake”… instead of “brioche.” The Queen said many things, but not that.
Unfortunately, some of the things she actually said, resulted in a trip to the guillotine.
I’m not sure if Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be quoted in 250 years, but if he is, his comments from last week might be among the most-quoted selections. Speaking at a ‘MAHA’ event — Make America Healthy Again — he commented on the price of beef.
“Most of the cheap cuts of meat are very inexpensive,” Kennedy said. “If you buy, you know, a porterhouse steak, it’s going to… it’s going to set you back [a few dollars]. You can buy liver or the cheaper cuts of steak that are very, very affordable.”
Government consumer price data shows the average U.S. city price for a pound of ground beef rose from $5.55 in January 2025 to $6.75 in January 2026. That’s an increase of about 22%. And that’s ground beef, not porterhouse steak.
As a child growing up in the great American West, I occasionally ate beef liver.
Which is not to suggest that I did so willingly. But my parents made it clear that no dessert would be forthcoming, so long as the despised slice of liver remained uneaten.
But I was curious about Secretary Kennedy’s claim that liver is very, very affordable, so I checked the price at Walmart, and you can buy a pound of Skylark frozen beef liver for $2.82. I would indeed classify that as very, very affordable. Cheaper than brioche, that’s for sure.
But we still have the price issue where porterhouse steak is concerned. Apparently, the cattle industry cut way back on the size of their herds during the COVID crisis. In fact, in 2022, many ranchers sold off their herds entirely. And the numbers of cows are not increasing here in the great American West, despite the record “per cow” profits.
But something else is about to increase.
The number of U.S. Department of Agriculture bureaucrats.
“Behind me, along this entire city block in bricks and mortar, is what government — that has grown too big, too bloated and too disconnected from its citizens — looks like,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last week. She was standing in front of a big, bloated, disconnected building known as the USDA South Building.
More than 70% of offices at the USDA’s South Building, in Washington DC, sit empty on any given day, while deferred maintenance costs have piled up past $1 billion, Rollins said at a press conference in front of the building.
“That all changes starting today, because today we are officially starting the process of turning the South Building back over to the General Services Administration.” That’s exactly what I would do, if my building had $1 billion in deferred maintenance.
USDA will also vacate leased space at an office in Alexandria, Virginia, as part of a plan outlined in July 2025 to shift bureaucrats out of the capital region… to regional hubs throughout the country, where there’s actual agriculture. Although, not as much agriculture as there used to be.
USDA will continue using the North Building, which has been recently decorated with attractive, colorful banners.
But most of the bureaucrats will be sent out to live with the rest of America, where we drink beer and count the deer in our backyards, and invite friends over for a barbecue.
Barbecued liver, anyone?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.