Jeff Miller: “Mr. Chairman, let me respond to a couple of questions that have come up in this debate. First of all, they talk about…”

“Mr. Chairman, let me respond to a couple of questions that have come up in this debate. First of all, they talk about the cost of it, and they say, well, the sugar is lower here, there, it does not cost anything. I want to refer once again to the General Accounting Office report, the GAO. We pay this agency, which is a part of Congress, $400 million a year to do studies for us. It is not a partisan organization; it is not a biased organization. It has the experts, or brings in the consultants, to come up with the best knowledge they can. In this case it was asked, what is the cost of the sugar program? It was a very detailed report. They are the ones that came up with the $1.9 billion cost. So the program really does cost money. You say it does not cost anything. My colleague from Florida was talking about jobs. We are concerned about jobs. But what about the candy companies that are losing jobs? Here is an article from the Nashville Business Journal about a company, Bradley Candy Corporation, on June 29 closed their doors and went out of business. My colleague from Chicago talks about the companies in Chicago going out of business. Bob's Candy from Albany, Georgia, makes candy canes. Hard candy is the one that uses a lot of sugar. They are being driven offshore for production because the cost of sugar in something like candy canes just makes it prohibitive to compete.”