Sugar Low
If Democrats have their way, the federal government will soon do for energy what it has already done for sugar.
Congress has this idea — admittedly very popular — to reduce Americans’ dependence on foreign oil. Well, Congress has decreased our dependence on foreign sugar. And look what that’s got us!
Americans pay far more for sugar than what they would pay were it not for Congress, and this costs us dearly. Do we really want this to happen with oil?
And yes, the cost of our sugar policy is extremely high. As a recently released report by Cato Institute scholar Chris Edwards makes clear, the federal government’s guaranteed prices, trade restrictions, and production quotas on sugar cost consumers and taxpayers billions. And, “for each sugar-growing and sugar-harvesting job saved by current sugar policies, nearly three confectionary manufacturing jobs are lost.”
Do you hear that Giant Sucking Sound? Jobs go both north and south because both Canada and Mexico have much lower sugar prices. So “imports of food products that contain sugar are growing rapidly. . . .”
The last twist of the knife is, of all things, environmental damage. As Edwards writes, “Large areas of the Florida Everglades have been converted to cane sugar production because of federal protections and subsidies.”
Let’s not sugarcoat it: Expect similar problems and worse with any new energy policy. Having no policy is better than the kind of policy Congress regularly prefers.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
