
Thursday, March 4, 2010, 4:44 AM
Fans of Macdonalds bring it on.
^Why Americans don’t need the government telling them what to eat. This graph shows the US federal subsidies for food production over a decade ending in 2005. As we can see, there is a HUGE contrast between what the US federal government recommends and what they subsidise. According to the Federal Nutrition Recommendations, meat and dairy should comprise approximately 25% of our intake. So why do these industries receive a full 75% of subsidies? In stark contrast, we see that fruit and veg only get 0.37% of subsidies!
The lower the subsidies, the higher the pricing as it costs more for the industry to produce. So is it any wonder the US have an obesity problem? The solution is not to tax junk food, it is to ELIMINATE SUBSIDIES and accordingly eliminate price controls. Incentives do a lot more good than penalties.