Sunday, April 19, 2015

The raisin court

I wrote about the National Raisin Reserve back in 2013 in a post cleverly titled I Heard it Through the Grapevine.  (Ouch, my arm hurts from patting myself on the back).  There's even a "Raisin Administrative Committee".

Did you know that the government regulates raisin production?  Did you know that you aren't allowed to produce "too many raisins"?

Yep, in a law dating back to the forties the government gets to decide how many raisins can be produced by American raisin farmers and they confiscate any raisins above that limit.   The raisins allegedly go into the "raisin reserve" although I have no idea what that means.  Are there giant silos filled with raisins somewhere in Kansas?

Anyway, one farmer claims that this is un-constitutional.  I can't see how he is wrong.

Now there is a SCOTUS case and they will be hearing arguments this week.

I hope that the Supreme Court will weigh in on the side of free markets here and just throw out this whole stupid law (which has been used to regulate a variety of crops other than raisins over the past seventy years or so), and in doing so strike a blow for free markets. 

Maybe then we can start discussing milk pricing and sugar subsidies.

1 comment:

NotClauswitz said...

Oh great, Government Raisins. How ridiculous. More reasons to grow grapes for wine and not for the Gov. If the grapes were made to produce wine instead of raisins, does the Gov. still have an interest - just the ATF?