Satisfying sweet tooth
Congress has begun the process of reducing, by up to $40 billion over 10 years, the amount of money that goes to food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
But it can't bring itself to stop using public money to satisfy wealthy interests' sweet tooth for food-related subsidies.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher is, perhaps, the worst example. A farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn., the Republican congressman has supported billions in SNAP cuts for low-income Americans while collecting $3.5 million in farm subsidies from 1999 through 2012.
Many of the subsidies enjoyed by Mr. Fincher, along with others that pay 62 percent of the cost of crop insurance, have survived in farm bills moving through the House and Senate.
Both houses already have decided to continue, through 2017, the most preposterous of all crop subsidies - those for sugar producers.
Wednesday the Senate rejected, 45-54, an amendment by Sen. Pat Toomey and others that would have scaled back the sugar program, under which the government buys sugar to sustain a minimum price. Americans not only expend their tax money on a handful of wealthy producers, but pay billions of dollars more for food than they would if sugar were sold at market prices.
Program defenders say the subsidies protect jobs. But independent analyses have shown that each protected job is at the expense of three others that would be created in the food industry if sugar weren't subsidized. Many candy producers, for example, have moved to Canada, Mexico or elsewhere because sugar is 30 percent cheaper.
Many members of Congress have their own sweet tooth. According to MapLight.org, which tracks campaign contributions, sugar industry interests contributed $637,830 to senators' campaigns and $3.17 million to House members' campaigns during the 2011-2012 Congress.
There's nothing like sharing the candy.
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