The government also pays higher prices when procuring sugar for the military and bears higher food stamp costs. It is taxpayers who pay these unnecessarily high costs. But most importantly, taxpayers pay dearly for this program because they are also consumers. The fact that this money is paid at the supermarket rather than on a 1040 form makes it no less costly to Americans. Fixing prices for the privileged few.
Proponents assert that the program protects small farmers.
In fact, a small number of farmers get most of the program s benefits. Supporters of the sugar program say that abolishing the program would destroy jobs. But they re only looking at one side of the picture. The sugar program diverts resources from the rest of the economy, thereby reducing jobs available elsewhere. If guaranteed prices protected jobs, the government should boost prices on products like paint in order to protect jobs in the paint-making industry.