The first blow came in May when the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, who will be one of the major architects of the next Farm Bill, said sugar policy is "working exactly as it is supposed to.  I don't foresee big changes in sugar."

And now, it looks like the American public agrees with the Chairman and isn't interested in policy alternatives.

Harris Interactive released a new poll this week that examined Americans' views of sugar policy.  In the poll, respondents were asked to choose between four sugar policy options-- the current policy and three alternatives that have been floated in the past by food manufacturers and others looking to make a change.

By more than a three-to-one margain, Americans favor the current sugar policy that keeps jobs at home and money in taxpayers' pockets over policy alternatives that would shift production to foreign producers or create expensive subsidies.

Just 19 percent of respondents selected one of the three alternative policies, which included an income support system similar to other farm commodities, a one-time buyout modeled after tobacco policy, and the elimination of the U.S. sugar program in favor of imports.

That left a continuation of the current no-cost sugar policy as the most popular choice.  Current sugar policy operates at no cost to taxpayers, supports 146,000 U.S. jobs, and boosts the country's food security, which might explain its popularity on Capitol Hill and with the American public.

James Johnson, Chairman of the American Sugar Alliance (ASA), was not surprised by the Harris Poll results.

"We're in a tough economy right now and the current no-cost sugar policy is projected to operate at no cost to taxpayers over the next decade," he said. "A change in policy would either require extensive taxpayer expense or a major shift to imports, which is equally as unpopular."

According to the Harris survey, 95 percent of Americans believe it is important to produce food domestically instead of relying on foreign suppliers.  And, nearly seven in 10 survey respondents said they'd rather buy sugar grown in the United States than overseas even if U.S. sugar cost more.

That's bad news for large food manufacturers, which are pointing to price and supply as the main reasons to scrap the current sugar policy.

Only 1 percent of Americans said sugar wasn't always available at the grocery store-- a far cry from the "sugar shortage" picture food companies have tried to paint in their lobbying efforts.

During the last Farm Bill, food companies focused their initial lobbying efforts on a scheme to have taxpayers fund subsidy checks to sugar producers, a proposal the ASA vehemently opposed.

Huge budget deficits make prospects for this $1.3 billion subsidy system particularly unlikely as Congress begins debate of the 2012 Farm Bill.