{"id":39699,"date":"2018-05-06T20:49:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T03:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=39699"},"modified":"2018-05-06T20:49:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T03:49:18","slug":"only-thing-big-candys-sugar-bill-would-grow-is-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/only-thing-big-candys-sugar-bill-would-grow-is-unemployment\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Thing Big Candy\u2019s Sugar Bill would Grow is Unemployment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(Chuck Muth)<\/em> – As renewal of the Farm Bill comes up for discussion in Congress this week, lobbyists for the candy industry are pulling out all the stops to pass a proposal deceptively misnamed the \u201cSugar Policy Modernization Act\u201d which would gut the current U.S. sugar program that protects American farmers from foreign competitors who \u201ccheat\u201d in the international marketplace.<\/p>\n

Candy lobbyists don\u2019t care.\u00a0 \u201cTheir sugar is cheaper,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

Yeah, well, so are stolen watches.\u00a0 But we don\u2019t make U.S. policy based on rewarding people for breaking the law.\u00a0 And make no mistake, some of these competitors have already been found guilty of breaking international law and trade agreements.<\/p>\n

They should be rewarded for that?<\/p>\n

That fact is many foreign governments subsidize their inefficient sugar farmers \u2013 which results in sugar prices that are below production cost.\u00a0 It also makes growing sugar a sweet deal even if all the extra sugar isn\u2019t needed and can\u2019t be sold at free market prices.<\/p>\n

Indeed, India \u2013 the world\u2019s #2 sugar producer behind Brazil \u2013 just announced new government subsidies for its sugar farmers.\u00a0 Such government meddling in the market has, in turn, resulted in a global glut of sugar which has resulted in artificially manipulated global prices well below true market value.<\/p>\n

Which puts American farmers \u2013 who receive no such government subsidies \u2013 at an unfair, competitive disadvantage.<\/p>\n

This unfairness is at the heart of President Trump\u2019s populist \u201cAmerica First\u201d trade agenda.\u00a0 In a speech in Cleveland last week the president reaffirmed his commitment to take a strong stand on trade to assure a \u201clevel playing field\u201d for American producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther countries put themselves first,\u201d Trump noted.\u00a0 \u201cThe fact is, we want to be first.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be taking care of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, some in Congress apparently still haven\u2019t gotten the memo.<\/p>\n

Instead of joining the president in protecting American sugar farmers from international \u201ccheaters,\u201d they\u2019re pushing Big Candy\u2019s proposal – nicknamed the \u201cSugar Farmer Bankruptcy Bill\u201d by American farmers – that would unilaterally eliminate current U.S. sugar protections without any pre-conditions on foreign governments to end their sugar subsidy programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve grown sugar in Louisiana for more than 250 years,\u201d explains sugar farmer Pete DuFresne.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s sad that some people want to end that history and outsource U.S. sugar production to subsidized foreign industries.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he said.\u00a0 Congress should listen.<\/p>\n

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of Nevada News & Views<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  (Chuck Muth) – As renewal of the Farm Bill comes up for discussion in Congress this week, lobbyists for the candy industry are pulling out all the stops to pass a proposal deceptively misnamed the \u201cSugar Policy Modernization Act\u201d which would gut the current U.S. sugar program that protects American farmers from foreign competitors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39699"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39702,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39699\/revisions\/39702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}