Supreme Court says program that takes raisins from farmers is unconstitutional

The Supreme Court says a program that lets the government take raisins away from farmers to help reduce supply and boost market prices is unconstitutional. --The justice said Monday that forcing raisin growers to give up part of their annual crop without full payment is an illegal confiscation of private property.

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Shriveled grapes, shriveled liberty

In oral arguments Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the government defend its kleptocratic behavior while administering an indefensible law. The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 is among the measures by which New Dealers tried and failed to regulate and mandate America back to prosperity. Seventy-eight years later, it is the government’s reason for stealing Marvin and Laura Horne’s raisins.
New Dealers had bushels of theories, including this: In an economic depression, prices fall, so a recovery will occur when government compels prices to stabilize above where a free market would put them. So Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “brains trust” produced “price stabilization” programs by which the government would fine-tune the supply of and demand for various commodities. In 1949, this regulatory itch was institutionalized in the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC). Today it wants the Hornes to ante up about $700,000. They could instead have turned over more than 1 million pounds of raisins — at least four years of their production.


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