Washington
While Congress is still shaping a new farm bill that
will set federal agriculture policies for the next five years, at least one
item is almost certain to remain intact in the final draft: the sugar program.
Farm subsidies typically are among the most bipartisan measures on
Capitol Hill, as lawmakers from agricultural states and districts — despite
party — come together to ensure their success. And the sugar program is no
exception.
But a growing coalition of fiscal conservatives,
free marketers and environmentalists, along with with the powerful
food-manufacturing industry, say the federal policy aimed at helping sugarcane
farmers is archaic and unfair, and vow to continue their fight.
"The sugar program is the most Soviet [style] centrally planned of
all the agriculture programs," said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy
studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning Washington think tank. "It really is
astounding."
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