Taxpayers fund sugar’s destruction of environment
The very existence of the sugar cane industry in South Florida can be attributed to ill-advised government policies resulting in Big Sugar being a huge welfare recipient at the expense of the public taxpayer.
For years, U.S. government subsidies have enriched the sugar industry’s profit margin. This insidious federal sugar subsidy program includes government-backed loans, price support and import quotas
A sweetheart arrangement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture allows the sugar processors to pledge sugar as collateral for business loans at a rate of about 18 cents per pound. This favorable loan rate, two to three times higher than the average world sugar price, must be repaid within nine months or sugar is forfeited to the government in lieu of repaying their debt.
To avoid loan default and the government being stuck with the high cost of storing forfeited sugar, the loan program guarantees that the sugar processors receive a price for sugar that is no lower than the loan value. Government control of the sugar supply maintains the high price of domestic sugar, putting billions of dollars into the sugar industry’s coffers. The government manipulates the sugar supply by setting quotas on foreign sugar that can be imported without prohibitive tariffs, and by regulating the amount of sugar that domestic processors can sell.
The sugar industry is quick to point out that the price-support program requires no government outlay, but the industry is allowed to plunder the taxpayer due to government’s role in propping up the high price of domestic sugar.
Flush with cash, the sugar industry contributes millions of dollars to politicians who support the sugar subsidy program and blunt efforts to promote world Free Trade Agreements and halting the destruction of the Florida Everglades and coastal estuaries.
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Oh, yes. If you do a little reading between the lines, this also tells you all you need to know about US relations with Cuba, and why a reapproachment obviously beneficial to both has never been allowed to occur.
