Thursday, May 31, 2012

U.S. sugar policy - a job killer

The article goes on to discuss the loss of jobs to overseas in order for companies to escape the high sugar prices. As you know, sugar is in much of the food you consume, so you are paying premium prices every time you go to the supermarket. Again, a law that benefits only the chosen few and robs from the general population. We need a robust Sunset policy that will rid the government of their ability to continue rewarding special interest groups without the necessity of transparency. 


Excerpt: Sugar Subsidies: Bitter about paying artificially high prices for the non-artificial sweetener everyone uses just so a politically connected family can enjoy the sweet life? It's time lawmakers put a lid on the honey pot.


An Iowa State University study has found that the federal sugar program costs U.S. consumers roughly $3.5 billion a year and deprives the workforce of 20,000 jobs. This New Deal-era framework of barriers on sugar imports and of price supports for domestic sugar is a racket that benefits only a few, in particular the Fanjul family of Florida.


In a letter to House leaders, a group of lawmakers from both parties call U.S. sugar policy "the last of the command-and-control commodity programs that has yet to be reformed." The 22 representatives insist that Congress should "have a robust debate about sugar policy during consideration of the 2012 farm bill." 


They write: "No other farm program is deliberately designed to transfer income from American consumers and workers to a small, but 'special,' interest group of sugar processors and growers."

Read full Investors Business Daily article here.

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