COMMENTARY Sugar daddies tax you by coddling politicians In Washington these days, consensus is about as rare as a third eye ... on a unicorn. Truly, you’d have trouble getting Democrats and Republicans to agree the sky is blue unless there was a campaign check in it for them. Yet both parties united in 2013 for one of America’s time-honored political traditions: propping up the sugar industry with tax dollars, price supports, trade restrictions and government loans. If that sounds like the kind of thing you couldn’t care less about, consider this: It costs you plenty. It leads to higher grocery bills — every time you buy anything from a candy bar to a box of cereal. It costs you tax dollars — about $280 million last year alone. And you pay for it with your natural resources, because the handouts prop up an industry that basically uses the lower half of Florida like a toilet bowl. Then we spend billions more to clean it up. So why do we do such a thing? Because the giveaways pay off nicely for the sugar barons ... and the politicians. In a nice bit of in-depth reporting, The Washington Post recently detailed how Big Sugar inundates politicians with cash . We’re talking $49 million spent on federal donations and lobbying in the past five years alone — more than all other crop sectors combined. And you’d better believe Florida politicians are raking it in. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson took in more than $70,000 from sugar last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Republican Marco Rubio is another big beneficiary. He got $17,000 when he first ran, and an additional $21,000 since. It goes on and on: $17,000 to Daniel Webster, $15,000 for John Mica, gobs of money to gobs of politicians who espouse free-market principles ... until it comes to Big Sugar. All of Central Florida’s congressional reps voted last year to preserve sugar’s sweet deal. So did most all of Florida’s Congress members. In fact, of Florida’s 29-member delegation, only three members voted to end the program. And one of those three has since died. Even the die-hard tea party guys — the ones who ran for office vowing to end corporate welfare — quickly learned the game. A perfect example is Gainesville’s Ted Yoho. When the Post cornered tea party Ted, he all but admitted the goodies for sugar were an absolute betrayal of his tea party promises. “I ran on limited government, fiscal responsibility and free enterprise,” Yoho told the Post, “but when you’ve got programs that have been in place and it’s the accepted norm, to just go in there and stop it would be detrimental to our sugar growers.” It’s almost like he didn’t realize he was talking out loud . Oh, and Big Sugar cut Yoho $4,500 worth of checks after he got elected. Now, Big Sugar and its sweet supporters argue that the subsidies, loans and limits on cheaper imports protect American jobs. They portray sugar as the next oil crisis, predicting a carb-coated Armageddon if America becomes dependent upon foreign sugar. (They also don’t like the word “subsidies” — though what else do you call taxpayer-financed profit-enhancers?) Opponents — including free-market supporters, environmentalists and government watchdogs — say the higher prices for sugar end up costing Americans far more jobs than they save. After all, the elevated sugar prices — sometimes prices twice as high as in other sugar-producing countries — are passed along to food makers, who are major employers. They are also passed directly on to consumers. In other words, you pay the price, literally, to put food on your table. I’ve often thought if the sugar subsidies were simpler to understand — something that actually showed up as a tax on your grocery receipt, for instance — Americans would revolt. But because the costs are spread out through a complex system of price supports, trade restrictions, loans and buyback programs, most Americans just scratch their heads. And the politicians can keep on raking in money from their sugar daddies. smaxwell@tribune
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:45:26 +0000
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