Posted on 11/11/2014 10:11:23 AM PST by reaganaut1
Americans are still yoked to many policies that go back to the New Deal era, when it was the intellectual fashion to “fix” the economy’s ailments by substituting bureaucratic coercion for property rights and market competition. It didn’t work then and is just as bad today.
In agriculture, the New Dealers’ idea was that prices were too low, but if the government could raise them, prosperity would return to the farming sector, which would then revitalize the rest of the country. That was the origin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) numerous “marketing orders” and production quotas, some of which are still in existence. Perhaps the most egregious instance is in raisin growing.
Under a USDA marketing order decreed in 1949, American raisin growers are required to hand over to their bureaucratic overseers (a.k.a. the Raisin Administrative Committee) a large percentage of their yearly crop, currently 47 percent. In return, they receive no guaranteed compensation at all, but merely a vague promise that some money might be returned to them after the Committee has sold the raisins and has covered all its costs. (The costs of the growers are immaterial.)
The effects of this are harmful to consumers. Prices in the U.S. are driven higher by the USDA’s artificial scarcity and it is not uncommon for California raisins to be less expensive in Europe than in America.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
We are harvesting the Grapes of Wrath?..................
Raisin grower ping.
Corporate welfare is far more harmful to society than welfare for the poor.
Its taxpayers’ subsidizing those who don’t really need the money.
Let’s see the GOP stand up for the little guy and eliminate outdated corporate welfare giveaways like this one.
And sugar. And peanuts.
It’s also the government choosing the winners and losers in the marketplace.
Get rid of Wickard vs. Filburn!
I fully agree; however, at this point we pretty much need a Constitutional Amendment to reverse that entrenched POS.
Perhaps something like:
| Commerce Clause Amendment |
|---|
| Section I The federal government shall directly subsidize no product or industry whatsoever, saving the promotion of the progress of Science and useful Arts. Section II The federal government shall never prescribe nor proscribe what the several states teach. Neither the federal government nor the several states shall ever deny the right of parents to teach and instruct their children as they see fit. Section III The congress may impose tariffs, excise taxes, and customs duties on anything imported or exported, provided that they are applied uniformly and in no manner restrict, subvert, or circumvent the second amendment. Section IV No federal law or regulation may impose prohibitions or restrictions of any sort on the commerce between the several states due to the item itself. |
Let’s get on it!
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