Story of a Sugar Whore
Sooo......Marco Rubio, after voting for the Trump tax plan has had a belated attack of "conscience" ( this is probably an unwarranted assertion) regarding its favoritism of corporations? How odd it is that Florida's poster boy for "bend over and spread for Big Sugar" even pretends to really care about this issue.
There just isn't, and cannot be, a rational or economically valid defense of the sugar subsidy program, rabidly advocated by Rubio, which every year
provides sweetheart deal loans to sugar processors at a guaranteed
price-per-pound. If the market price is below the guarantee when they want to sell,
the processors simply dump the crop on the U.S. Department of Agriculture as
the loan repayment. To avoid that outcome, the USDA holds sugar prices
artificially high by imposing tariffs on imports above an annual quota. As a
result, as previously discussed, we Americans pay about twice what the
rest of the world pays for sugar.
The Coalition for Sugar Reform, which
includes businesses that use sugar, says that for every U.S. sugar-growing job
saved from high U.S. sugar prices, about three American manufacturing jobs are
lost! You might want to read that again.
The U.S. candy industry has been hollowed out as companies have fled to
places like Guatemala and Thailand where they can remain competitive by buying
sugar at world-market prices.
Marco Rubio, on the other hand (the one that isn’t held out
to take the donations from various “Big Sugar donors, most notably the Fanjul
clan) explains his support with the last bankrupt refuge of protectionist
scoundrels—"national security." Yep, we might have a "sugar
gap" and then God only know what those sugar countries might do! If the U.S. opens the market for sugar,
according to Marco Rubio, “other countries will capture the market share, our
agricultural capacity will be developed into real estate,” and “then we lose
the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we’re at the mercy of a
foreign country for food security.”
Really, Senator? And this man has
a college degree? So, let's see; taking this to its logical conclusion.......
If Americans don’t pay double the world price for sugar, Alfy and Pepe Fanjul
(Alfy, by the way, actually a Spanish citizen) will sell their sugar acreage to
home builders, who will pave over Florida and put us at risk of extortion from
. . . Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic? This national security line doesn’t even hold
up for rare-earth minerals from China used for national defense, much less a
basic farm commodity. This, of course, also fails as a reason, since Florida
will own the land and the Fanjuls can go back to Cuba and be the Cuban sugar
kings again.
Since 2010, as before, we will continue
to sit watching helplessly as nitrate rich crud from various sources, not the
least of which is sugar fertilizer regurgitated back into Okeechobee, continues
puking its way into the St Lucie Canal, the Kissimmee watershed remains a
narrow, straight channel, and the River of Grass continues thirsty and under
watered with clean water. Lake pollution continues threatening the South
Florida water supply and who gives a shit?
Apparently, it’s not
the Senator or the Governor who is supposed to represent their interests. Florida voters went to the polls in the
1990’s and agreed that Big Sugar must be held primarily responsible for cleaning
up its pollution. It just hasn’t happened. Voters went to the polls in 2014 to
pass a constitutional amendment — approved by more than 75 percent of
Floridians — to buy environmentally important lands like those owned by US
Sugar and the Fanjuls. it likewise, hasn’t happened.
How odd would it be if finally the
bitching of rich folks about the thick, green pus in the canal where their 60
footer is moored causes someone to do something re: big sugar other than put a
hand out, drop trou and say "Thank you sir, may I have another?" It would be even sweeter to see the voters of
Florida reject both Rubio and morally bankrupt co-conspirator, Rick Scott.
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