Government Should Not Subsidize Junk Food or Health Food but End All Subsidies

Dan Goldberg of the New Jersey Star-Ledger recently claimed that the federal government is subsidizing America’s “obesity epidemic.” Citing a report from the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), Goldberg notes:

Because the federal government chooses to subsidize corn and soy—key ingredients in junk food—instead of fruits and vegetables, unhealthy snacks are kept artificially cheap while healthier food remains relatively pricey.

NJPIRG’s Joe Coleman suggests adding subsidies for “apples and other fruits and vegetables” to make us “a little healthier as a nation,” Goldberg reports.

Although Coleman correctly argues that the government is wrong to subsidize corn and soy, the fundamental problem is not subsidies to corn and soy producers, but farm subsidies as such. Rather than add subsidies—or substitute apples for corn—congress should end all subsidies.

Subsidies violate the rights of taxpayers who are forced to fund them. The government has no business using tax dollars to subsidize farmers, to manipulate us into eating “healthier,” to provide a “farm safety net,” or to affect the economy in any other way. Government’s proper job is not to affect the economy but to protect individual rights—including each individual’s right to spend his money as he sees fit.

For the government to protect people’s rights it must eliminate all farm subsidies.

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Related:

• A Brief History of U.S. Farm Policy and the Need for Free-Market Agriculture
• Senator Menendez Dishonestly Equates Private Food Bank with SNAP

About Michael A. LaFerrara

Michael A. LaFerrara resides in New Jersey, where he spent his career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries. He writes on a wide variety of topics from an Objectivist perspective at his blog, Principled Perspectives.

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