[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 13 (Wednesday, January 31, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S569-S570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE SUGAR PROGRAM

  Mr. GREGG. Madam President, tomorrow, or possibly Friday, we will be 
voting on cloture motions dealing with the Farm Program and a variety 
of bills dealing with the Farm Program.
  Within the context of the entire Farm Program, there are a lot of 
subprograms, and one that I wish to talk about is the Sugar Program. 
The Sugar Program in this country has proceeded since the early 1980's 
to be a program of inordinate subsidy for a few small farmers--for a 
few farmers; they are not small farmers--at the expense of the 
consumers of this country.
  Last year, it was estimated that the Sugar Program cost the consumers 
of this country approximately $1.4 billion. It has cost the consumers 
of this country approximately $10 billion over the last decade. That is 
because we have in this country a system in the Sugar Program where we 
artificially inflate the cost of sugar to benefit a few growers of 
sugarcane and some sugar beets, but primarily in this instance it is 
benefiting sugarcane growers.
  This makes no sense. This program is appropriately tied to sugar, I 
guess, because the last vestiges of Marxism in the world of any 
significance is the nation of Cuba, which always had a sugar-based 
economy.
  Now, you might argue, well, China is still a Marxist nation. 
Actually, China has become quite capitalistic. Cuba is the only 
country, certainly in the Western Hemisphere, it is the only 
dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere, in the world that still 
practices theoretically pure Marxism, Marxism being a system where 
essentially the State sets the price and the production of all 
commodities within the community. And, of course, the Cuban economy is 
always based on sugar. So maybe that is why we as a nation have for 
some reason decided in our sugar industry we are going to emulate Cuba 
because that is essentially what we do. We have in the Farm Program 
which we have designed in this country essentially a system of top-down 
market controls, 

[[Page S570]]
production controls which create, at best, an economic structure which 
emulates what used to be the East European countries and at worst an 
economic structure which basically tracks the philosophy of social 
economics as designed by Karl Marx, because essentially what it does is 
say that the Government will set the price, the Government will set the 
production levels, not necessarily for the purposes of benefiting the 
consumer but for the purposes of benefiting the producer.

  We set up a structure here where the fact that sugar on the open 
market can be bought for 10 cents a pound has no impact on the price of 
sugar in the United States. Can you imagine that? The United States, 
the center of capitalism in the world, a market that all of the rest of 
the world looked to when other nations were trying to design their 
economies, has put in place in our Sugar Program a structure which is 
essentially a carbon copy of what they did in Eastern Europe, what they 
now do in Cuba, or still do in Cuba, in what we basically call a 
Socialist form of economics.
  Why do we do this? Why do we have a system which penalizes our 
consumers to the tune of $1.4 billion, which does not allow any 
competition for the price of sugar in the marketplace, which 
arbitrarily sets the cost of sugar, and which rewards a few growers of 
sugarcane specifically? Seventeen growers get 42 percent of the benefit 
in the sugarcane industry--17 growers get 42 percent of the benefit. In 
fact, one grower gets a benefit that is estimated to be almost $68 
million a year. Why do we structure a system like this? Well, at the 
risk of using a pun, it is raw power, raw political power.
  The fact that the sugarcane, sugar producers lobby is so strong in 
the Congress of the United States, it has been able to maintain this 
totally unjustifiable system. How ironic it is that when the Republican 
Party, after 40 years, finally gets control over the Congress of the 
United States, we continue to allow this sort of antimarket system to 
flourish, to grow, and to abuse the consumers of this country.
  How ironic it is that this President--and I cannot fault him 
individually because the fault lies on both sides of the aisle on this 
one--but this President who has made such a large issue of protecting 
consumers in many other areas of his administration and has made this 
his cause celebre, allows a program which every year takes $1.4 billion 
out of the pockets of consumers and artificially transfers it to a 
nonproductive sector of our economy--I am not sure it is unproductive--
but a sector of our economy that does not want to compete. Why should 
not we have a sugar program which is willing to compete?
  There are some other side effects that also we ought to be concerned 
about besides the fact that we are basically taking the consumers of 
this country for a ride for the benefit of a few individual growers. 
There are some other issues we ought to be concerned about.
  There is the issue of environmental protection, the fact that as a 
result of having this artificially high-priced sugar, we have seen a 
huge amount of land in southern Florida converted to cane growing which 
land was the original watershed of the Everglades. It is not clear 
really what would be a better use of this land. I have to admit that 
the jury may still be out on that.
  But before the facts are known, the Everglades are under a tremendous 
effect, and the fact, first, that the water is not flowing in its 
original form--and there is the belief that the sugarcane activity is 
part of it--and, second, sugarcane activity is expanded artificially as 
a result of this.
  Another concern we should have is the effect it is having on our 
neighbors in the Caribbean. We just invaded Haiti because we felt that 
it was in economic and political chaos. One of the reasons that our 
neighbors in the Caribbean are in economic chaos is because we do not 
allow them to participate in competition with us. We have closed our 
markets to one of their primary goods--sugar. We live in fear, I guess, 
as a nation, that we cannot compete with Haiti.
  My goodness, how absurd. Obviously, with the technologies we have and 
the ability we have of growing products in this country, we can compete 
with our Caribbean neighbors. We would find, I suspect, that if we were 
to open our markets that sugar beets in many parts of this country 
would remain very viable and very competitive, sugarcane in parts of 
this country would remain very viable and very competitive, and we 
would have also the added benefit of allowing some of our Caribbean 
neighbors to maybe increase their standard of living a little bit by 
being able to sell us a little bit of their primary product.

  Maybe we would not have to go around invading them. We could save the 
dollars we spend on national defense in places like Haiti, and the 
dollars we spend on economic and political development in other regions 
of the Caribbean because we would have to help them out through what is 
known as the old-fashioned way, by letting them compete in the 
marketplace with us.
  So tomorrow we take up these farm bills, and there will be an attempt 
to shut off debate. One of the outcomes of shutting off debate and 
passage of these farm bills, or at least down the line in the farm bill 
would be a 7-year extension of the outrage called the Sugar Program. 
That would be a rather bitter pill for the American consumers. That is 
not a sweet deal for American consumers. It may be a sweet deal to get 
a 7-year extension of this program for some of the growers, but it 
certainly would mean that under the present calculations that would be 
about another $10 billion of tax, because that is essentially what it 
is to American consumers.
  So I strongly oppose the attempt to do this. And along with the 
Senator from Nevada, who has joined me on this, Senator Reid, we will 
do all we can, I believe, to try to avoid allowing the consumers of 
this country to be once again pilfered by this program. As a result, I 
will attempt to oppose cloture. I hope that others who are concerned 
about the consumers of this country, about the environment of this 
country, and about our neighbors in Central and Latin America, would 
also join me in opposing cloture.
  Because it is not right. It is not right that a few folks because of 
their political influence and strength should be able to keep in place 
a program which should have died when the Berlin Wall fell. The fact 
is, it is very ironic and unfortunate that as a nation we continue to 
promote this concept that competition should not be allowed in the 
production of sugar.
  It is antithetical to all the Republican Party stands for. It is time 
to put an end to it.
  Madam President, I thank the Chair for the time to speak. I yield 
back such time as I may not have used, and I make the point of order 
that a quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I assume that we are in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are.

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