Lugar sweetens sugar appeal with cupcakes, Peeps

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) thinks American sugar is overpriced, and he wants to do something about it.

So how better to appeal to his fellow senators for reform than with a sample of the item in question? 

{mosads}Specifically, sugar in the form of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, 99 of which were delivered to members of the upper chamber on Wednesday afternoon, courtesy of the Hoosier State’s senior lawmaker.

For those disinclined toward cupcakes (or watching their waistlines), the Lugar team had an even sweeter alternative: Peeps, the puffy, spun-sugar chicks that inexplicably fly off store shelves every April. 

Accompanying the treats was a letter from Lugar in which the soon-to-be 79-year-old senator urged his colleagues to support the “Lugar Free Sugar Act of 2011,” which aims to deregulate sugar markets, and, Lugar argues, lower the cost of sugar to consumers. 

For added emphasis, the veteran foreign-policy expert described the current U.S. sugar program as one that “only a Soviet apparatchik could love.” That’s some sharp rhetoric on sugar.

Once all the senators get their deliveries, one would hope that any leftover cupcakes would feed Lugar’s staff members, but that was still up in the air at press time. 

“Right now the office’s cupcake market is being tightly regulated in order to artificially drive up demand,” joked a source. “But we’re doing everything we can to free up some reserves.”