Subject: Don't federalize food programs

From: [email-masked] (Steven Ertelt)
Date: 28 Nov 1996 16:57:57 GMT

Don't federalize food recovery programs; end the government programs that
make food more expensive

        WASHINGTON, DC -- President Bill Clinton thinks we waste too much
food, so he's turning to federal bureaucrats -- the same people who pay
farmers not to grow food and who inflate the cost of food that Americans
buy -- to solve the problem.

"Clinton has bitten off more then he can chew if he thinks that federal
bureaucrats, with their 70-year track record of reducing America's food
supply, can provide more food for the hungry," said Steve Dasbach,
chairman of the Libertarian Party.

In his November 23rd radio address, Clinton said, "Too much food goes to
waste" in America. So Clinton has instructed federal agencies to start
food recovery programs -- patterned after private charitable efforts to
salvage wasted food from restaurants and grocery stores -- and distribute
it to the needy.

"Clinton ignores the fact that for the past 70 years, government
agricultural programs have caused millions of tons of food to be
stockpiled or destroyed -- and caused uncounted additional tons of food
never to be grown. These programs cost Americans billions annually in
higher food prices," said Dasbach. "Rather than create new government
initiatives, Clinton should immediately eliminate those government
programs that exacerbated the hunger problem in the first place."

How does the government reduce America's food supply? Through hundreds of
programs that make food more scarce or expensive, said Dasbach. As
examples, he noted:

        * To drive up prices, in 1992 the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Almond Board confiscated 100 million pounds of almonds from farmers.

        * In 1992, the USDA made it a federal crime to sell 500 million
California peaches and nectarines because government bureaucrats said they
were too small -- some by 1/16th of an inch.

        * In 1992, the USDA's Raisin Administrative Committee prohibited
California farmers from selling 147 million pounds of seedless raisins.

        * In 1986-87, the government paid dairy farmers to kill 1.6
million cows -- costing consumers $7 billion in higher dairy prices.

        * In 1991, the USDA prohibited California and Arizona farmers from
selling 32% of their crop of fresh oranges.

        * In 1993, federal programs required corn farmers to leave 10% of
their acreage idle, and rice farmers to leave 5% of their acreage idle. In
all, the USDA paid farmers to not plant crops on over 50 million acres
that year.

        * By 1993, federal farm regulations cost consumers at least $12
billion annually in higher food prices.

In addition to federal programs that reduce food supplies, local
governments have also passed laws that make it a crime to feed the hungry
and homeless, noted Dasbach.

For example, in San Francisco from 1993 to 1995, police arrested more than
700 people for feeding the poor without a permit, in violation of a city
ordinance. One anti-homeless activist was given a 60-day jail sentence for
distributing soup and bagels to poor people, and another man -- arrested
92 times for feeding the homeless -- faced a life sentence under
California's three-strikes-and-you're-out law.

Does Clinton really want to help ease the problem of hunger in America? If
he does, the solution is not to mandate that government bureaucrats get
into the food recovery business. The solution is to eliminate the
government programs and laws that make food more expensive, scarce, or
illegal.

--
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