No one should be forced to subsidize someone else’s fatness. From Stephen Manuszak at mises.org:
The first piece of legislation passed by the new Congress of the United States of America after the ratification of the Constitution included a tariff on the import of foreign sugar. Although this tariff was passed as a means to raise the funds needed to pay the debts accrued during the Revolutionary War, coincidentally it also provided elaborate protections to the nation’s wealthiest farmers of sugarcane and sugar beets.
The indirect subsidies afforded to the sugar producers by the Tariff Act of 1789 have been reapproved and signed, now via the Farm Bill, every five years by every available president up to and including Donald J. Trump. For more than two hundred years, these sugar producers in America have been able to sell their product at prices higher than what the market would normally allow. Later this year, President Joe Biden will get the opportunity to put his signature on the bill as well.
In the late 1960s, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan discovered an enzyme that effectively and easily converted cornstarch into fructose. This technology was ultimately sold to American companies, and in 1983, the Food and Drug Administration approved high fructose corn syrup as safe for consumption. In short order, the food industry took advantage of this cheap, new form of sweetener in extraordinary amounts. Supply of this ersatz sugar became abundant. The market, as you would expect, used this opportunity to undercut the historically high prices of sugar generated by the aforementioned tariff.
