Not for the taxpayers or sugar consumers, though:
That’s right: The federal government protects the sugar industry, lends it money after promising that the loans wouldn’t cost anything to taxpayers, and after all that still ends up having to buy part of its sugar production because borrowers can’t repay the loans. Customers pay higher prices for sugar, and then they pay again when their tax dollars are used to buy over-priced sugar and bad loans. And yet, lawmakers on the Hill continue to support farm interests in spite of the unfairness and inefficiency of the whole system.
This is the opposite of good government.
Indeed. And further to all that, corn ethanol is mandated (thus pushing up the price of food) even though sugar is a better feedstock for brewing ethanol.
To add insult to injury, the G –at the very same time– sics the Nutritionist police upon anyone caught drinking high-cal sodas, or anyone that can be charged with living while fat.
While I can understand the US Government intention to have self-reliance in the food supply this is taking things too far. It is not like in a case of war people would start dropping dead like flies from a lack of available sugar. Not to mention that in the current economic environment the US isn’t in a de facto war with any of the major sugar producing regions.
The corn ethanol subsidies and regulations enforcing their use in blended fuel are just sheer lunacy.
It would also be interesting if US producers stopped using HFCS. The smell sucks, the taste sucks, and it is bad for your health. Give me sucrose any day of the week.
Godzilla – That’s because of corn subsidies too. HFCS is used because it’s cheap, and it’s cheap because the feedstock for it – corn – is cheap, at least for that purpose.
I haven’t looked into this, because it doesn’t really affect me – but I strongly suspect that this situation is just more proof that GOP politicians are just as bad as Democrats in the matter of wanting pork for their districts. Am I not right in thinking that most of the corn is grown in Republican-dominated states?