[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 134 (Thursday, September 17, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H6087-H6088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CONFECTIONERS

  (Ms. SPEIER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that says you can 
catch a lot more bees with honey than with vinegar. It turns out that 
that is true in business, too.
  The confectioners industry employs a whopping 55,000 busy worker bees 
in the United States--that is 55,000 people who are working directly in 
the confectionery industry--and indirectly supports another 400,000 
jobs in other industries from retail to trucking.
  Every confectionery job created in the United States supports another 
seven; but Congress continues to maintain an unbelievably wrongheaded 
policy that is destroying these jobs.

[[Page H6088]]

  The Department of Commerce found that protectionist provisions in the 
2008 farm bill destroyed three jobs for every job they saved. They have 
cost consumers and businesses as much as $14 billion since 2008, and 
they have cost taxpayers over $300 million in subsidies.
  We have lost over 125,000 jobs in sugar-related industries since 
1997. We cannot continue to hurt our own workers and consumers alike. 
This is not a sugar high. This is a sugar low.
  I urge Congress to pass the bipartisan Sugar Reform Act so we can 
provide relief to small- and medium-sized businesses.

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