What to Cut: Striking subsidies could save billions

[BlueGin]

Joe Dutra has defied the trend of American confectioners and candy makers who've moved abroad to escape the U.S. government's regime of sugar subsidies.

After moving his Kimmie Candy Company back to the United States from South Korea, he's now operating a $4 million-$5 million business in Reno, Nev.

But, he said, "when coming back to the United States, I found out that I was paying up to 90 percent more for sugar in the last few years."

Sugar is just one commodity whose price is hugely inflated in the United States because of what critics call an outdated system of subsidies and price supports. The subsidies take the form of direct payments to farmers that cost taxpayers billions -- as well as restrictions on imports and how much can be grown, and other regulations that raise prices.

"It's ridiculous," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a frequent critic of subsidies. "We're losing candy manufacturers in America because the price of sugar is four to six times higher here than it is anywhere else in the world."

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, called it "an old Soviet-style command and control process."



Read more: What to Cut: Striking subsidies could save billions | Fox News

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

All the government does is fuck up what ever it puts its hands into.

 

[BlueGin]

Here we go 55 million right off the top. Why do we have restrictions on where peanuts can be grown again?

Another subsidy, on peanuts, costs taxpayers $55 million every year. Peanuts can be grown in a wide range of climates, but the government restricts their planting to a few, mostly southern, states.

"There is no reason why peanuts can't be grown everywhere. It would certainly lower the price to consumers and taxpayers, and yet it's another example of a very small group of farmers having an oversized influence on Congress," Schatz said.

 

[Katzndogz]

Whatever the excuse, the man was wise to move his business from South Korea.