Dear President Bush:

Our industry is suffering from unfair competition from a foreign rival. His productivity is far superior and his labor costs much lower than ours. As a result, he is flooding the U.S. market with goods at very low prices. If you don't take action, he'll soon attract all our customers, our sales will decline, and an important American industry will disappear. The political and economic ramifications are too terrible to contemplate.

Who is this rival and what is his product? It is the Sun and the product is light. The American Association of Light Bulb Manufacturers asks you for legislation requiring the closing of all windows, skylights, shutters, curtains, and blinds -- in short, all openings, holes, and fissures through which sunlight enters houses, to the detriment of our industry. The country must not abandon us to such unfair economic competition.

This paraphrases the satire written in 1845 by French economist Frederic Bastiat. Bastiat's exposure of the logical absurdity of protecting French industry through tariffs and subsidies is as devastating today as it was nearly 160 years ago.

The Bush administration's record on trade policy is particularly distressing. If Mr. Bush had resisted pandering to political interests, the nation's consumers might have been spared paying higher prices on anything made with imported steel and providing massive new subsidies for wealthy farmers.

Well-connected special interest groups take protectionist positions because they reap concentrated benefits while dispersing costs across society. When politicians rig the market and legislate competitive advantages for key constituencies, they are rewarded with generous support. This process helps ensure incumbency. It's the consumer who foots the bill (e.g., quotas on imported sugar means we all pay a few pennies more for soda). Here's another egregious example.

Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords is the prime force behind the 1996 creation of a milk cartel known as the Northeast Dairy Compact. The Wall Street Journal described it as "the OPEC of milk." Its goals are to "stabilize" the dairy industry by setting a minimum price farmers are paid for their milk, and to preserve Vermont family dairy farms. Does it work? The Boston Globe reported that two years before the compact was formed, 34 Massachusetts and 117 Vermont dairy farms failed. In the two years after milk prices were "stabilized," 44 Massachusetts farms and 153 Vermont farms went out of business.

Government transferred wealth from families of milk-drinking children to a few farmers. Since its inception, the compact has increased the income of New England dairy farmers $13,000 per farm. The region's milk drinkers suffered by overpaying by $100 million a year. Its effects on consumers were so negative the Senate wouldn't explicitly reauthorize it. Rather, they hid it in the 2001 Farm Bill.

Economists use the term "regressive" for policies that adversely affect the poor. This dairy compact is precisely this, i.e., it shifts burdens to those near the bottom. How hypocritical that this policy is supported by the same senators -- Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Ted Kennedy -- who constantly preach about their concern for the poor and "the children." Here's a more open and honest solution.

Across the developed world, global competition harnesses information, transportation, and technological improvements. This filters out higher-cost agricultural producers. The consolidation of farms and ranches follows and many towns decline. While economic analysis and market forces suggest abandonment, this is an unpopular prescription. The question remains, what to do?

Instead of hypocritically making the poor pay to keep family dairy farms going, Northeastern states might impose a dedicated airport landing and rental car fee. This will force all the fall tourists (a.k.a. "leaf peepers") and others attracted by the region's bucolic charm to pay the cost of preserving the landscapes they enjoy.

The Northeast Dairy Compact Commission argues, "…preserving the family farm is not just about food; in Vermont, it's about protecting the environment, our rural economy, and our way of life…." If this is true, and society decides the preservation of family farms is a legitimate social goal, then preservation policy should not be paid for by the poor. It's the well-off who have the opportunities to enjoy the scenery. They should pay to preserve it.