Sonny Clark
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #1
We're spending $Millions to subsidize bad health, which means that we're spending more unnecessarily on health care.
Scientific team sounds the alarm on sugar as a source of disease Yet we continue to subsidize the stuff AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
FROM THE ARTICLE:
Lawmakers across the political spectrum, from Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), support using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the American sugar industry. In the House, 46 percent of members—109 Democrats and 92 Republicans—received money from American Crystal Sugar in this election cycle.
The program that supports the American sugar industry has many facets. Most infamous is a subsidy program in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture gives loans to sugar farmers and allows them to repay those loans with raw sugar if sugar prices fall below 20.9 cents per pound. This program functions as an effective mass purchase of sugar, which drives up prices for consumers and thus doubly subsidizes the industry. The USDA then sells this sugar at a steeply discounted price to ethanol producers. Last year the USDA spent $53.3 million on the program. Including the loans that could not be repaid, the government spent $171.5 million.
Subsidizing farmers and big oil has been concerns for many years. And, these subsidies sometimes require even more money to address the effects either directly or indirectly. Sugar has been documented to cause serious health issues, which in turn causes costly medical treatment, or even death. Yet, we're funding and encouraging the consumption of substances that may or may not kill us. I'm sure that this isn't the only harmful product that we're subsidizing, but it certainly merits a closer look, and serious consideration.
Scientific team sounds the alarm on sugar as a source of disease Yet we continue to subsidize the stuff AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
FROM THE ARTICLE:
Lawmakers across the political spectrum, from Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), support using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the American sugar industry. In the House, 46 percent of members—109 Democrats and 92 Republicans—received money from American Crystal Sugar in this election cycle.
The program that supports the American sugar industry has many facets. Most infamous is a subsidy program in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture gives loans to sugar farmers and allows them to repay those loans with raw sugar if sugar prices fall below 20.9 cents per pound. This program functions as an effective mass purchase of sugar, which drives up prices for consumers and thus doubly subsidizes the industry. The USDA then sells this sugar at a steeply discounted price to ethanol producers. Last year the USDA spent $53.3 million on the program. Including the loans that could not be repaid, the government spent $171.5 million.
Subsidizing farmers and big oil has been concerns for many years. And, these subsidies sometimes require even more money to address the effects either directly or indirectly. Sugar has been documented to cause serious health issues, which in turn causes costly medical treatment, or even death. Yet, we're funding and encouraging the consumption of substances that may or may not kill us. I'm sure that this isn't the only harmful product that we're subsidizing, but it certainly merits a closer look, and serious consideration.
