[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14453]
[From the U.S. 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.
  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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