Protectionism

The following is from The Club for Growth:

One of the many things that fires me up about big government spending is the protection of domestic sugar. For several reasons, lawmakers in Washington coddle this industry even though it is economically destructive.

Case in point: Domestic sugar prices are sky-rocketing because of Hurricane Katrina. This report shows that domestic sugar recently traded for 42 cents a pound and peaked at 72 cents. In almost any other market, this wouldn’t happen because foreign production would stabilize world supply. But because of sugar quotas, we can’t readily access the world market where the recent spot price for sugar was quoted at 15 cents a pound.

Eventually, candymakers and other large users of sugar will be forced to move overseas if they want to remain competitive. This will inevitably result in job losses here at home. That’s ironic, of course, because the protection of sugar was meant to protect jobs lost to foreign competition in the sugar industry. And you better believe that Democrats will harp ON and ON and ON about how companies leaving America are Benedict Arnolds.

I’ve got to take a chill pill. This has gotten me all riled up and it’s barely past 9am.