Taxpayers for Common Sense Action
Eliminate Sugar Program.
Domestic sugar prices are at least twice as high as foreign sugar prices due to the federal government’s sugar policies. A combination of government price supports and restrictions on foreign imports forces consumers to pay up to an extra $1.9 billion annually, according to the non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO).
This program primarily benefits big sugar tycoons, with less than 1 percent of the producers gobbling up 58 percent of the benefits. Originally enacted during the Depression, the sugar program was eliminated in 1974 but resurrected by proponents in 1981. It then narrowly escaped the 1996 Farm Bill reforms that attempted to phase out subsidies for most other crops. In 2000, a glut in the sugar market prompted the USDA to pay producers directly in order to reduce production of surplus sugar. These forfeitures and paid cutbacks cost taxpayers $465 million in fiscal year 2000.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) offered an amendment to the reauthorization of the farm bill that would have established a recourse loan program (loans that must be paid back in cash and cannot be repaid in crops) that would have been phased out by 2006, effectively eliminating the program. The Senate tabled (killed) the Gregg amendment.