William Bryan: “This year Ralston-Purina will spend $13 million to advertise its Chex brand cereal, and Brown-Forman Corp. has budgeted…”

“This year Ralston-Purina will spend $13 million to advertise its Chex brand cereal, and Brown-Forman Corp. has budgeted $20 million to help sell California Cooler, and last year McDonald's spent $7.7 million in advertising in Singapore alone. The question arises, what do all of these companies have in common besides each having multimillion-dollar advertising budgets? The answer is that they are all recipients of taxpayer funds which is known as the Market Promotion Program. This program was started in 1986 to promote American agricultural produce. The amendment which the Senator from Arkansas and I have presently before the floor will zero out funding for this program for this year. Last year, the appropriators came up with $85 million for this Market Promotion Program, and in the legislation we are acting on this evening, they have increased the appropriation level to $110 million. In my view, this program... is corporate welfare.”