Chuck Schumer: “Mr. Chairman, it is time to put an end to the Federal Government's deal with the sugar industry and finally reform one…”

“Mr. Chairman, it is time to put an end to the Federal Government's deal with the sugar industry and finally reform one of the most invidious, inefficient, Byzantine, special-interest, Depression-era Federal programs. What do Americans get from the sugar program? Well, they get an additional 1.4 billion a year in higher prices at the checkout line. They get 500,000 acres of precious Florida wetlands destroyed and another 5 acres of Everglade land destroyed every day. They get to lose thousands of well-paying refinery jobs that are lost and sent overseas, like jobs at Domino Sugar in my district because the price of sugar is twice the world price. Here is a list. Every red line, a refinery; a good-paying union job, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) mentioned, gone, and huge subsidies to a few wealthy sugar barons. Fifty-eight percent of this subsidy, more than half, goes to Florida's Fanjul family, 58 percent of this subsidy goes to one family who one would not characterize as hardworking family farmers. No matter how we refine it, the sugar program is a sour deal.”