The House and Senate will soon have the opportunity to vote on whether to give America s depression-era sugar program a new lease on life. Under the federal sugar program, the government guarantees sugar growers unlike Americans in just about every other business a minimum price for their product. Defenders of this price-fixing program assert that it costs the taxpayers nothing, benefits small farmers, and protects jobs. They also assert that eliminating the sugar program would mean higher profits for companies that buy sugar and not lower prices for consumers. However, all four of these assertions are false.
Taxpayers pay for the sugar program.
The program s defenders assert that it costs taxpayers nothing. Although it is true that taxpayers do not pay a direct subsidy to sugar farmers, it takes taxpayer money to make the program run. Someone pays for government bureaucrats and agents to administer the program. 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.