Bentham’s Bulldog has published a series of pieces on the Save Our Bacon Act, urging people to call and email their senators, donate, and spread the word.
Things we agree on
- Factory farming and gestation crates are immoral
- Fighting the Save Our Bacon Act is highly important for animal welfare.
Disagreements
Bentham's Bulldog has made several factual errors in his posts, and did not correct them when I and others pushed back.
Error #1: Luna Amendment
This is not very important, and the time of importance for it has passed, but Bentham's Bulldog falsely claimed that the Luna Amendment was dead. See this comment, although I won't go into too much detail.
Error #2: Pennies Per Animal
Bentham's Bulldog claimed "And yet even then, they might be drowned out by ghastly agribusinesses who torture pigs to save literally pennies per animal."
The linked tweet, however, says pennies per dollar, not pennies per animal. Here's a quote from the tweet:
Confirmed: "cents on the dollar" is all the pork industry saves by using these inhumane gestation crates and farrowing crates.
Here are some estimates from frontier AI models, INCLUDING THE TRANSITION COST amortized over 5 years:
grok-4.3: 4 ¢/$
opus-4-7: 5 ¢/$
gpt-5.5: 7 ¢/$
gemini-3.1-pro: 8 ¢/$
Justin S and I corrected that statement in the comments section, yet Bentham's Bulldog did not respond or correct the misstatement.
Error #3: The AMPA PAC (most important)
In this post, Bentham's Bulldog recommended that people "Donate to the AMPA, which is campaigning to help defeat the bill.". In the comments section, he stated that "The money they have through the pac is only spent on opposing this bill". There are 2 problems with this statement:
- The link is to the AMPA 501(c)4, not their PAC.
- According to FEC data, the American Meat Producers PAC has spent money on legal fees, transaction fees, and Annie Craig for Minnesota.
The AMPA does not brand itself as a single issue organization fighting the Save Our Bacon Act. I find it unlikely that all their donations go to fighting the Save Our Bacon Act. However, I would like to hear arguments about whether they are an effective animal charity.
My Levels of Confidence
I am not an expert in this area. I would welcome corrections from other people who are. If I had to give confidence levels, I would say:
- 99% about the pennies per animal quote
- 85% that the AMPA PAC isn't only spent towards opposing the bill.
- 50% that AMPA donations are the most effective animal welfare donation for the time being. I'm most interested in getting answers to this question.
Conclusion
Having accurate information about animal welfare advocacy is extremely important to saving as many animals as we can. I am now unsure if I have made ineffective donations by donating to the AMPA. For this reason, I hope that Bentham's Bulldog corrects his false statements, and I would like more clarification on the AMPA.
