[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 154 (Friday, September 29, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H9677]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TIME TO CUT SUGAR SUBSIDIES

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, one thing maybe we can agree on, on a 
bipartisan basis, is the sugar program. In a Congress where we are 
revising and cutting and reducing welfare, education, farm programs 
right and left. We are restructuring Medicare and the School Lunch 
Program. We are going after all commodities: Peanuts, cotton, wheat, 
the Market Promotion Program. The list is endless.
  But, Madam Speaker, what stands alone as the sweetest deal of all? 
Sugar. And the result: The world price of sugar is 11 cents per ton; 
the domestic price is 24 cents a ton.
  But does it really cost the taxpayers? Not directly, because they 
have got the USDA in on the thing. Who pays the difference though? 
Shoppers at the grocery stores, and it costs American consumers $1.4 
billion.
  Who is getting rich on it? Plenty of sugar farmers out there. There 
are 33 farmers involved in the sugar program in Florida alone that 
receive over a billion dollars in payments. One gets about $65 million 
a year.
  Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller] and the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] have a bill to eliminate the 
sugar program, and I believe, Madam Speaker, we should bring this 
debate to the floor of the House for a yes-or-no vote.

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