Welfare for sugar beet farmers.

That's right Amy and Al. Welfare for a bunch of farmers who do not know how to treat their employees, won't negotiate with them and hire scabs to do their work while they're locked out of the plant. Haven't you heard the news? Sugar isn't good for you and is addictive. Price supports are addictive to farmers!

I can see why Republicans do not care for Ron Paul. Paul is consistent in his views that the government should not interfere with business at anytime. In the House,the free market Republicans, who say everyone is on their own refuses to get this bill out of committees. All of the politicians vote to maximize their campaign contributions. They have no principles at all.

MN sugar suppliers are one of the biggest lobbying groups on the country. God forbid that they have to compete against sugar from Latin America. Corporate welfare/subsidies continue. Those who have the gold make the rules. Don't get me going on the ethanol and milk subsidies, to name a few. Oye!

No thanks to Minnesota's democrats for driving up the price of sugar for the poor in this country.

I'm wondering if those locked out workers for the farmer owned cooperative American Crystal Sugar even care anymore. Looks like the company's profits are guaranteed once again, but the workers, well, I guess not so much. I personally will never buy another sack of sugar from such corrupt and greedy group.

While the sugar subsidies are hard to defend at a national level, it's hard to fault Klobuchar and Franken for supporting them given that if the subsidies went away, it would probably end the Minnesota sugar industry and the state's economy would suffer for it. On the other hand, if the kind of greed leading the sugar growers to take their taxpayer-subsidized millions and then stiff their workers in the refineries, perhaps they've gotten a little too big for the breeches Uncle Sam paid for them after all.

Makes for an amusing dichotomy. All of the reflexively anti-worker posters on this site pile on with union-bashing comments whenever the Strib posts an article about the American Crystal Sugar lockout, assuming as they always do that management are the white knights and the workers are the villains. Suddenly their Randian view of the world gets a monkey wrench thrown in it when they're reminded that the Crystal Sugar corporate boardroom they've aligned themselves with are the recipients of the some of the most generous corporate welfare giveaways of any industry in the country. At this point, it clearly must be a fight where there's nobody for you guys to cheer for....but then again, whenever there's a working person fighting for a decent living and company goon with a bootheel on his neck, you'll always find a way to cheer on management so perhaps the fundamentals of the standoff still haven't changed for you.

I'm not surprised that anti-union Amy would do this...but Al? Those Red River Republicans will never admit that they - not those folks of another race - get the primo welfare.

Wouldn't it be great if progressives and conservatives could join together on issues we agree on rather than just bicker all the time? Beet farmer lobbyist and their bought-off politicians would be running scared.