There’s no question that politicians are spending way too much of our money. But try to cut something out of the budget and the vested interests inside the Beltway scream bloody murder.
Each spending program—every single one — has its own lobby to keep the cash flowing. And each lobby has a point man in Congress. Take sugar. You may not know it, but you give a lot of money to sugar farmers. And most of your tax dollars go to subsidize the wealthiest 1 percent of sugar farmers. The sugar lobby’s point man in Congress is a former sugar farmer from Louisiana named Charlie Melancon (search).
Congressman Melancon gave up his job as vice-chairman of the Sugar Association (search) to become a member of Congress last year. Even though he’s a freshman, he managed to get on the agriculture committee, where he’s been trying to kill President Bush’s plan to cut the maximum payment to individual farmers from $360,000 down to “just” $250,000.
He’s also been trying to keep sugar prices high by keeping out foreign sugar. That’s why Congressman Melancon just received the dubious honor of the Citizens Against Government Waste (search) “Porker of the Month” award. Of course, in this case, "Sugar Daddy" may have been more appropriate title.
By the way, you can see more about how much tax money we spend on farmers on Forbes on Fox, this weekend on a special day. Sunday at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
And that’s the Asman Observer.
Watch David Asman on "FOX News Live" weekdays at noon ET.
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