Sugar subsidies are a symptom of a much larger problem:
Protectionism is always a reverse–Robin Hood proposition. Farm protections force the poor to pay artificially higher food prices in order to pad profits for millionaire farmers. And the poor never even realize that they’re basically being defrauded by a conspiracy of government officials and their favorite special interests. When properly understood in their true economic light, these farm supports (like the abominable Wright Amendment for American Airlines) are tantamount to government collusion in a criminal price-fixing cartel. Contrary to what is an almost biblical tenet of progressivism, government cannot sanitize a price-fixing cartel. Government power can only make the cartel’s injury to the public far worse, both by protecting the cartel from the competition that would bring it down in a truly free market, and by making the cartel permanent. It is no surprise that the New Deal’s agriculture supports were foisted on the American public as emergency measures, but are still with us today.
They’re very pernicious.
Sugar subsidies are an interesting case that doesn’t map to the usual ideological or geographic patterns. They are supported by people on opposite ends of the political spectrum, like Ted Yoho (R-FL) and Al Franken (D-MN), from different parts of the country (sugar cane growers from the Southeast and sugar beet growers from the upper Midwest). And the opposition to sugar subsidies isn’t spearheaded by free-traders, it’s pushed by Congresspeople from districts that host food companies that would benefit from cheaper sugar (e.g. Hershey, PA).
The author tries to tie sugar supports to the New Deal, but at this point farm subsidies are a bipartisan shame. They illustrate a general problem with policies that greatly help a specific interest group at the expense of the diffuse majority. The sugar companies care intensely about the issue, and put their lobbying dollars to work to make sure their voice is heard. The consumer who will have to pay extra for food is not nearly as motivated or organized. It’s the same reason we get the SLS — the average taxpayer whose money is being wasted has probably never heard of the issue, while the contractors building the thing care about little else. At least with sugar subsidies there’s a countervailing force in the form of sugar-consuming food companies.