Marshall Sanford: “this vote is a gut check. Like few votes that I have seen recently, it asks us who are we and what do we really believe…”

“this vote is a gut check. Like few votes that I have seen recently, it asks us who are we and what do we really believe in. As Republicans, we talk about free enterprise, we talk about open markets. Yet, the sugar program has a guaranteed floor price of 23 cents. When I go to the produce store, I do not see a guaranteed floor price for tomatoes. When I go to the car shop, I do not see a guaranteed floor price for repairing the car. When I go to the hardware store, I do not see a guaranteed price for hammers. Yet, we are going to make an exception here? I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, many folks say we are for the working folks, we are for the little folks. If that is so, how could we possibly ask folks to pay double the price for sugar? A lot of folks say, ``Forget it, Mark. We are talking about sweet tea and we are talking pecan pies.'' That is not a lot of money. That is just a little bit of money. Yet, if you were to talk about sweet tea, especially down South, we are talking about a lot of sweet tea. In fact, what we are really talking about is principle. How can we allow big benefits to accrue to just a few small folks; in other words, special interests? In fact, you add up those sweet teas and pecan pies, you are looking at $1.4 billion of benefit. I think probably nothing better illustrates this problem than the way that this subsidy in essence flows down to one family in Palm Beach, $65 million a year of benefit.”