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WASHINGTON,
June 16 - Many
consumers have heard reports about price supports for sugar
producers in this country - consumers paying what amounts to a
hidden tax. Now, according to a new report from the General
Accounting Office, what some already consider an outrageous fleecing
of America is about to get even worse.
WHAT
CRITICS CLAIM is already a sweet deal is getting even sweeter for
sugar beet farmers like Craig Halsmann. The government is using $70
million in tax dollars to buy 150,000 tons of sugar — enough to
lay five-pound bags end to end from New York to Los Angeles three
times over.
Why?
To prop up sugar prices.
“We’re
in a crisis situation,” Halsmann said. “We’re just asking the
USDA to help us out as farmers because our prices are so terrible.
We need to keep our family farmers on the farm.”
But
critics say it’s ridiculous — and a honey of a deal — because
those taxpayer dollars are in addition to the inflated prices the
public already pays for sugar and don’t even know it.
“This
is one of the most serious outrages on the agricultural side,”
said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. “Clearly, consumers have never
understood that they’re paying a tax every time they get a pound
of sugar.”
And
also every time they buy a candy bar or cereal or even a canned ham.
It’s all because of the sugar program.
Here’s how it works: The government uses import restrictions and
price supports to drive up sugar prices. Today, the world price of
sugar is about eight cents per pound. But U.S. growers get about 22
cents.
And
it all shows up in what you pay. Experts estimate a family of four
spends an extra $26 a year on sugar because of the program. This
government report says that works out to almost $2 billion —
straight from taxpayer pockets to sugar producers.
SUPPORTERS
DISPUTE FIGURE
Supporters of the program insist it doesn’t cost that much and say
struggling farmers need even more help this year since bumper sugar
crops drove down prices.
“All
the government has done is to come in and buy some of the surplus
sugar,” said Jack Roney of the American Sugar Alliance. “The
government is holding that sugar; they will sell it eventually,
possibly even at a profit.”
In
fact, the Agriculture Department claims that buying excess sugar now
may save taxpayer money, because if prices stay below what growers
are guaranteed, another sweet part of the sugar program lets them
dump their crop on the federal government at a much bigger cost to
taxpayers.
“Well,
who benefits from the purchase, I think, is the taxpayer,” said
Keith Collins, the USDA’s chief economist . “We think that
actually saves us some money and at the same time, supports prices a
little bit now.”
That’s
not so, say consumer advocates.
“The
program gives too little money to the farmers who need the help and
too much money to farmers who don’t need the help,” said Art
Jaeger of the Consumer Federation of America. “And it asks
consumers to foot the bill.”
In
fact, the biggest winners of all, critics say, are the biggest sugar
daddies of all — Pepe and his brother Alphonso Fanjul, of Palm
Beach, Fla. Politically connected, they’ve given $1.8 million to
both Democratic and Republican parties over four years. According to
one study, they earn about $65 million a year from the program.
“Any
time you ask consumers to pay $1.5 to $2 billion a year more for
food, and the beneficiaries are largely wealthy sugarcane growers in
south Florida, I think that’s a fleecing of America,” Jaeger
said.
For
consumers, it may be bittersweet.
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