It's a new start-up, online investigative website, "The Republic Report, investigating how money corrupts Democracy". Right down our alley, at Eyeonmiami and it is great to see the new venue reporting on what we found completely disgusting last week: Congress let the sugar billionaires retain their corporate welfare in the Farm Bill. Sugar poisons people, poisons the Everglades, and poisons Democracy.
POSTED AT 10:00 AM BY ZAID JILANI
The everyday corruption of our government by Big Money has real consequences for Americans, many of whom are struggling to feed their families.
Take the farm bill that Congress spent time working on this week. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced an amendment to restore $4.5 billion in funding for the food stamp program, which assists some of the poorest Americans, by cutting “guaranteed profit for crop insurance companies from 14 to 12 percent and by lowering payments for crop insurers from $1.3 billion to $825 million.”
Her amendment, which would help poor Americans at the expense of crop insurers, was defeated along a 33-66 vote. The cuts to the food stamp will be going ahead in the name of deficit reduction.
But there was a separate effort in the Senate this week to save money that would’ve spared the poorest Americans and taken on corporate welfare instead.
Senators Jean Shaheen (D-NH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced an amendment that would save up to $3.5 billion every single year by repealing and reforming various subsidies, tariffs, and other price supports that prop up the price of sugar on behalf of the Sugar Lobby.
The amendment was rejected along a 46-53 vote, with bipartisan coalitions on either side.
It’s not a coincidence that the poor — who do not have well-heeled lobbyists at their disposal — lost while the powerful Sugar Lobby maintained its government favors. As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney explained last week, Big Sugar has all sorts of deep connections to Washington:
But the lobby for the sugar program is strong. Most famously, the Fanjul family in Florida, owner of Florida Crystals, are deeply embedded in Washington politics. Over the last three elections, the Fanjuls have given more than $1.8 million to federal candidates and political action committees, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Alfie Fanjul is a longtime Democratic fundraiser (Bill Clinton once interrupted a liaison with Monica Lewinsky to take a call from Alfie). His brother Pepe is a Republican booster. In January, Pepe and his wife hosted a $2,500-a-head Palm Beach fundraiser for Mitt Romney.
“The U.S. sugar program is essentially a transfer of wealth from consumers, including the poorest Americans, to a handful of wealthy sugar producers,” said Toomey regretfully in a statement after his amendment was rejected. Unfortunately, this is the reality in America where Big Money runs the legislative process.
Republic Report is a new investigative blog looking at money in politics and how to hold politicians accountable for siding with moneyed interests against the American people. If you’d like to get a daily digest of our top stories, subscribe to our e-mail list here.
POSTED AT 10:00 AM BY ZAID JILANI
The everyday corruption of our government by Big Money has real consequences for Americans, many of whom are struggling to feed their families.
Take the farm bill that Congress spent time working on this week. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced an amendment to restore $4.5 billion in funding for the food stamp program, which assists some of the poorest Americans, by cutting “guaranteed profit for crop insurance companies from 14 to 12 percent and by lowering payments for crop insurers from $1.3 billion to $825 million.”
Her amendment, which would help poor Americans at the expense of crop insurers, was defeated along a 33-66 vote. The cuts to the food stamp will be going ahead in the name of deficit reduction.
But there was a separate effort in the Senate this week to save money that would’ve spared the poorest Americans and taken on corporate welfare instead.
Senators Jean Shaheen (D-NH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced an amendment that would save up to $3.5 billion every single year by repealing and reforming various subsidies, tariffs, and other price supports that prop up the price of sugar on behalf of the Sugar Lobby.
The amendment was rejected along a 46-53 vote, with bipartisan coalitions on either side.
It’s not a coincidence that the poor — who do not have well-heeled lobbyists at their disposal — lost while the powerful Sugar Lobby maintained its government favors. As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney explained last week, Big Sugar has all sorts of deep connections to Washington:
But the lobby for the sugar program is strong. Most famously, the Fanjul family in Florida, owner of Florida Crystals, are deeply embedded in Washington politics. Over the last three elections, the Fanjuls have given more than $1.8 million to federal candidates and political action committees, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Alfie Fanjul is a longtime Democratic fundraiser (Bill Clinton once interrupted a liaison with Monica Lewinsky to take a call from Alfie). His brother Pepe is a Republican booster. In January, Pepe and his wife hosted a $2,500-a-head Palm Beach fundraiser for Mitt Romney.
“The U.S. sugar program is essentially a transfer of wealth from consumers, including the poorest Americans, to a handful of wealthy sugar producers,” said Toomey regretfully in a statement after his amendment was rejected. Unfortunately, this is the reality in America where Big Money runs the legislative process.
Republic Report is a new investigative blog looking at money in politics and how to hold politicians accountable for siding with moneyed interests against the American people. If you’d like to get a daily digest of our top stories, subscribe to our e-mail list here.
3 comments:
The Sugar Barons are using our buying of sugar to fund political candidates and the elections which are not in the best interest of us.
This is easy: Just stop buying their sugar. Everyday we hear about obesity, health issues, rotten teeth etc all associated with sugar. I stopped using sugar 4 years ago.
Oh! I forgot to mention their destruction of wetlands, everglades, waterways and waste.
Jobs will be lost but these barons are not high paying people anyway.
THese same people would be hired to assist cleaning our environment.
Did you know if you qualify for food stamps you can get a cellphone paid for by the government? This is big government out of control.
The point that Big Sugar does not need any incentives is valid.
The sugar program does not cost the taxpayers one cent unless the government allows cheaper imports into the United States, at which point tehe sugar farmers can pay off agricultural crop loans with sugar.
This program differs from ones where the government pays money to farmers.
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