We’ve written about the outrageous sugar import quotas here many times. And Chris Edwards wrote in March about the American Sugar Alliance’s ad in the Washington Post titled “Big Candy’s Greed.” But we couldn’t link to the ad because for some reason the American Sugar Alliance has not chosen to put a version of the ad on its website. But the Alliance ran its expensive quarter-page ad in the Post last week, so we’re now able to provide the public service of making it available online.

Note that what candy producers and other sugar users want is to be allowed to buy sugar from the world’s most efficient producers at world market prices—just like every company in a free market. This protectionist nonsense “Big Candy” is fighting has been going on for decades. In 1985, the Wall Street Journal and then the New York Times reported that the Reagan administration had slapped emergency quotas on “edible preparations” such as jams, candies, and glazes—and even imported frozen pizzas from Israel—lest American companies import such products for the purpose of extracting the sugar from them. Apparently it might have been cheaper to import pizzas, squeeze the tiny amount of sugar out of them, and throw away the rest of the pizza than to buy sugar at U.S. producers’ protected prices.

As Chris Edwards noted, a critic of Big Sugar quoted in this article summarized the sad reality of sugar growers: “They are unlike any other industry in Florida in that they aren’t in the agricultural business, they are in the corporate welfare business.” 

Please enjoy “Big Candy’s Greed,” brought to you by the coddled, protected, price-supported, politically active U.S. sugar industry:

The tragic building collapse in Bangladesh two weeks ago, killing over 900 people, has focused public attention on working conditions for garment workers around the world. The attention has intensified calls for Western clothing brands to insist on better working conditions in  the factories around the developing world where their products are made. According to the New York Times, some companies are responding to consumer concerns by marketing their “fair labor” practices on product labels.

The development of a fair trade movement for clothing is in many ways encouraging. It demonstrates the power of consumers in a free market to impose their preferences on the supply chain. Businesses succeed or fail based on how well they meet consumer demand, and if consumers demand certain labor practices enough to cover the added costs, businesses will respond.

This voluntary mechanism does a much better job than government mandates. Even a requirement that companies merely put labels on their clothes does a poor job of informing consumers. Any mandated label is insulated from accuracy-enhancing, consumer-driven competition and vulnerable to capture by special interests.

On the other hand, refusing to buy clothes made in “sweatshops” is a terrible way to help the people of Bangladesh. The fact remains that despite the terrible working conditions, workers chose their sweatshop jobs over worse alternatives. Outlawing sweatshops or refusing to buy things made in Bangladesh removes those workers’ best option and forces them to settle for less. (LearnLiberty.org has an excellent video explaining the “Top 3 Ways Sweatshops Help the Poor Escape Poverty.”)

More foreign investment in industrial production would help the people of Bangladesh even more. It’s true that Bangladeshis’ poverty enables you to buy cheap t-shirts because they will work for next to nothing in dangerous factories. But the systemic effect of Western investment means more opportunity, and opportunity is the opposite of poverty.

That said, consumer demand for “fair trade clothing” may actually help factory workers, whereas a flat-out refusal to trade would not. This particular disaster seems to be largely the result of rampant cronyism, inept bureaucracy, and official corruption—problems that could be alleviated by reducing the discretion of local middlemen. If concerned consumers have more specific information about labor practices, they won’t have to rely on purely origin-based information. It would be a shame if someone decided not to buy a shirt just because it was “Made in Bangladesh.” Positive and voluntary inducements to improve working conditions are much, much better than refusing to do business with poor people.

Conservative and libertarian scholars are clashing over the findings and political implications of the new Heritage Foundation immigration study. The study spans 92 pages and is jam-packed full of statistics and detailed calculations.

I’ll leave the immigration policy to my colleagues who are experts in that area. To me, the study provides a very useful exploration into how massive the American welfare state has become. Here are some highlights:

• “There are over 80 of these [means-tested] programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans.”
• “The governmental system is highly redistributive … For example, in 2010, in the whole U.S. population, households with college-educated heads, on average, received $24,839 in government benefits while paying $54,089 in taxes … [and] households headed by persons without a high school degree, on average, received $46,582 in government benefits while paying only $11,469 in taxes.”
• “Few lawmakers really understand the current size of government and the scope of redistribution. The fact that the average household gets $31,600 in government benefits each year is a shock.”

Total federal, state, and local government spending in 2010 was $5.4 trillion, or $44,932 per U.S. household. The figure of $31,600 in “benefits” is total spending less spending on public goods, interest, and government pensions.

A useful feature of the Heritage study is a breakdown of the $5.4 trillion in spending into six categories constructed by the authors. “Direct benefits” includes mainly Social Security and Medicare. “Pure public goods” includes programs such as defense and scientific research. “Population-based services” includes programs aimed at whole communities, such as police and highways. (Some of these also seem to be public goods). “Means-tested benefits” includes programs such as food stamps. Education includes both K-12 and college subsidies. “Interest and pensions” is the current costs of past spending, which includes servicing the debt and paying for government pensions. The chart shows spending in 2010.  

This spending breakdown is useful for thinking about the proper size of government. From a libertarian standpoint, governments ought to be spending only on public goods and population-based services, as a first cut. That would be $1.94 trillion, or just 36 percent of the current total of $5.4 trillion. As a percent of GDP in 2010, that would be spending of 14 percent, rather than current spending of 38 percent.

But some of the population-based services mentioned by the authors could be privatized, and spending on some of the public goods could be cut. So a good libertarian target might be less than 36 percent of current spending, or less than 14 percent of GDP.

The Heritage study is sparking a debate about what type of immigration reform the nation should have. But hopefully, it will also spur more discussion about the massive size of the American welfare state. Immigration is partly, or mainly, such a contentious issue because we have such a huge welfare state.

The study includes projections about how many trillions of dollars of government benefits will flow to immigrants and their children in the decades ahead. But conservatives and libertarians agree that we ought to cut trillions of dollars in benefits to immigrants and nonimmigrants alike.

So is there some common ground here? Can we work toward an immigration reform that cuts government dependency in general and downsizes the welfare state?