Jeff Miller: “This amendment is a modest change in the sugar program in this country, a one-cent change in sugar prices in this…”

“This amendment is a modest change in the sugar program in this country, a one-cent change in sugar prices in this country. Most of my colleagues do not realize that the sugar program is one of those old-fashioned programs where the Federal Government here in Washington has the bureaucracy that set a high price on sugar. This is not part of the free enterprise system that most people think we have. We have a price of sugar that the government sets that is over twice what the price is around the world. In Canada the price of sugar is about 9 cents a pound. In the United States it is about 22, 23 cents a pound. This makes zero economic sense. In 1996 we passed Freedom to Farm, a very significant and historic piece of legislation for agriculture, because it really had a lot of reforms that were very important and good for this country and good for farmers. But while we reformed lots of the grain programs and other programs, we did not reform sugar. Sugar was one product that basically escaped reform in the 1996 farm reform bill.”