What Is The Government Doing With All Those Raisins It Steals From US Farmers?
For those who sneer about the "free market capitalism" in our country, look at all the ways government leads our country to resemble a totalitarian state -- one of which is finally about to become the subject of a Supreme Court case.

This case is about the way our government demands that raisin farmers hand over a portion of their crop -- a large portion -- and then sometimes pays them nothing in return.

David A Farenthold writes in the WaPo in 2013 about the disgusting federal raisin reserve:

A Florida congressman has introduced a bill that would eliminate one of the U.S. government's most unusual institutions: the Raisin Administrative Committee, keepers of the national raisin reserve.

The raisin reserve is a program established by the Truman administration which gives the Agriculture Department a heavy-handed power to meddle in the supply and demand for raisins.

To limit the supply of raisins on the market, the government can simply take tons of raisins from the farmers who grew them. The raisins go into a "reserve." They are often kept off the U.S. market: sold overseas, perhaps, or given to needy schoolchildren.

Sometimes, the farmers don't get paid a cent in return.

A decade ago, California farmer Marvin Horne defied the reserve, refusing to hand over his raisins to the government.

More on how there wasn't "just compensation" via Volokh, thus violating the "Takings Clause" of the US Constitution. Will Baude at Volokh blogs:

The government does kind of defend a variation of the second argument -- that there is no taking because the raisin farmers get some proceeds from the raisins they're forced to set aside. But I'm not really sure how that can be right either. If property is taken, the government has to provide just compensation. If the government can render property "not-taken" simply by providing 50% (or 10% or 1%?) compensation, then the government can redefine the just compensation requirement at will.

The Supreme Court will now hear his case.

From Barbara Leonard at Courthouse News Service:

Nearly mirroring a 1938 dispute involving walnuts, the raisin case pits the U.S. government against growers Marvin and Laura Horne and the Raisin Valley Marketing Association, a coalition of 61 raisin growers in Fresno and Madera Counties.

Both cases involve dissatisfaction with federal marketing rules that direct a share of every grower's annual harvest to a crop-specific committee, which then sells the reserves for export or donates them to school-lunch programs or foreign governments. The Department of Agriculture began the program in the late 1930s under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act (AMAA), hoping it would stabilize commodity prices, market disequilibrium and the nation's floundering credit system.

The Hornes, who have grown raisins in California since 1969, tried to circumvent the law in 2001 by cutting out the middle man: buying packaging equipment and contracting with 60 local farms to stem, clean and sort their raisins. Claiming that they were now "producers," not "handlers," and that reserve requirements applied only to handlers, they said they should no longer have to contribute. The federal Raisin Administrative Committee did not agree and imposed nearly $700,000 in fines.

The committee also rejected the Hornes' claim that the reserve rule violated the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, which prohibits the federal government from seizing personal property without compensation.

The Hornes filed their complaint against the Department of Agriculture in Fresno, Calif.

How disgusting is this? The Government charged the Hornes nearly $700,000 in fines for refusing to allow their goods to be stolen.

I'm grateful to them for bringing this case. Every time somebody defends an attack on our civil liberties, they're defending not only their own case but the civil liberties of all of us.

And people wonder why I'm for "limited government."