The Department of Agriculture's peanut program is simultaneously slashing consumption of peanuts, bilking consumers of half a billion dollars a year and raiding the U.S. Treasury.

• Federal price supports act as a floor for market prices, but Congress did not include a price ceiling and dictated that supports could only be increased, never decreased, even if production costs fell.

• It is a crime to grow peanuts without a federal license.

• Since the USDA imposed restrictions in 1949, the number of peanut farmers in the U.S. has plummeted more than 75%.

• Two-thirds of the people who own peanut-growing licenses are not farmers at all, but doctors, lawyers, etc., who rent out their licenses to farmers.

• In 1993, peanut farmers with their own licenses received a minimum net return after costs of 51%, more than eight times the average corporate profit in the U.S.

• By government estimate, American consumers pay up to $513 million more per year for peanuts because of the regulations.

• Peanut farmers are expected to dump much of their harvest this year on the U.S. government, costing taxpayers $120 million.