Sweet government scam keeps sugar prices high, loses jobs

April 13, 2011 06:14


[T]he centrally planned program artificially inflates prices and costs consumers as much as $4.5 billion a year, according to economist Mark Perry.

IBD Editorials

EXCERPTS:

Due to a perverse federal program, it costs consumers billions more than it should. Remember that on the next trip to the grocery store.

The New Deal-era program, constructed as we know it in 1981, is an elaborate web of controls on supplies, minimum price guarantees and import barriers.

This racket benefits only a handful of sugar growers. The Government Accountability Office has found that a mere 1% of them get 42% of the program’s gifts. Perhaps the top beneficiary of this politically designed government planning is Florida’s Fanjul family. This is not some small operation, but a megabusiness that controls 40% of the state’s crop and gives generously to politicians from both parties.

American workers also pay a steep cost so Big Sugar can keep living the sweet life. Companies that use sugar in their products, from Kraft to Hershey to Brach’s, have closed facilities in the U.S. and moved them out of the country, typically to Canada and Mexico, where they can buy sugar much cheaper.

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