This story is shocking -- not only do the government-mandated dairy cartels raise your prices for dairy products, they also prevent any competition outside that cartel structure.

In the summer of 2003, shoppers in Southern California began getting a break on the price of milk.

A maverick dairyman named Hein Hettinga started bottling his own milk and selling it for as much as 20 cents a gallon less than the competition, exercising his right to work outside the rigid system that has controlled U.S. milk production for almost 70 years. Soon the effects were rippling through the state, helping to hold down retail prices at supermarkets and warehouse stores.

That was when a coalition of giant milk companies and dairies, along with their congressional allies, decided to crush Hettinga's initiative. For three years, the milk lobby spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions and made deals with lawmakers, including incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Last March, Congress passed a law reshaping the Western milk market and essentially ending Hettinga's experiment -- all without a single congressional hearing.

"They wanted to make sure there would be no more Heins," said Mary Keough Ledman, a dairy economist who observed the battle.

As I said, the story shocks the conscience. And the arrogance of the anti-competition members of Congress involved in this travesty, both Republican and Democrat, is disgusting. We need to throw every one of them out -- especially those in leadership positions or who acted to prop up the profits of their own family businesses.

In most industries, this sort of activity would be illegal and an example of activity forbidden under anti-trust laws. But Big Ag is treated differently by the government, and so the consumer gets screwed .

Time to get cartels, agricultural subsidies, and price controls out of the supermarket, and allow the free market to set prices for us instead.