Letter to the Editor: Sen. Cardin is in the Pocket of the Nation’s Sugar Cartels

Image by Bruce Emmerling from Pixabay

Dear Editor,

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) is in the pocket of the nation’s beet and cane sugar cartels, costing Marylanders dollars at the grocery store and jobs in the food industry. Cardin continually votes to maintain the U.S. sugar program. Why? It’s really quite simple, Senator Cardin has received well over $44,000 in political donations from the sugar cartels since coming to Washington in 1987.

Thanks to Sen. Cardin and others, the U.S. sugar program continues. The U.S. sugar program is a Soviet-style command and control scheme that restricts American planting and imports. This inflates the price of sugar in the United States to almost double the world price.  So, when you go to the store to buy a snack cake or anything sweetened, you pay more! The U.S. sugar program means Americans pay $4 billion every year in increased grocery costs, which breaks down to $48 per household.

While all Americans feel the impact of the sugar lobby in the food they buy, many also feel it in the job market. High domestic sugar prices force confectionery manufacturers to cut costs, putting tens of thousands of Americans at risk of losing their jobs. For every job defended by the sugar cartels, at least three jobs are lost in confectionery manufacturing. Thanks to politicians in Washington pandering to donors, sugar remains a rigged sector of the American economy.

In Sen. Cardin’s 34 years in office, he repeatedly voted against reforming this corrupt system. This costs each Marylander family an additional $1,632 at the grocery store. It’s time for Senator Cardin to step up and end this costly government giveaway to the cartels!

The Independent Bakers’ Association is an international trade association that fights to protect the interests of mostly family-owned wholesale bakers and allied trades. For more information about IBA and sugar program corruption, visit IBAbaker.com.

Nicholas A. Pyle
President of the Independent Bakers Association