Ethanol Subsidies Example Of Crony Capitalism

The subsidies to farmers for corn ethanol is one of countless subsidy programs to prop up a product that consumers don't want.  Government should pull money from these subsidy programs, whatever they are, and allow these products to succeed or fail based on the free market.  If you are producing a good or service that someone wants, at a price they can afford, then your business will succeed.  The government shouldn't be picking and choosing which products, or businesses, it wants to see succeed.  Even Algore, whom I disagree on pretty much everything, has admitted that corn ethanol is a failure.  Sure, it can be turned into fuel, but not at a cost that is reasonable.  On top of that, it removes farmland and corn from the food supply, creating increases in the cost of food products across the board.
If you actually sit down and think about how vital corn is in the food chain, it is amazing.  Nearly everything that comes in a can, a box, or a jar has corn something as an ingredient.  This subsidy should be allowed to expire. Just as we shouldn't be subsidizing banks or businesses, we shouldn't subsidize farmers either.

Midwestern senators counter colleagues’ bid to kill expiring ethanol tax break
By Ben Geman - 12/01/10 05:15 PM ET

A bipartisan group of Corn Belt senators — led by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Finance Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — are calling on Senate leaders to extend federal ethanol support that’s slated to expire at year’s end.

“We are writing to ask that you make an extension of renewable fuel tax and tariff provisions a high priority on the Senate’s legislative agenda for the remainder of the year. Allowing the provisions to expire or remain expired would threaten jobs, harm the environment, weaken our renewable fuel industries, and increase our dependence on foreign oil,” states a Nov. 30 letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

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Related articles

• Strange bedfellows and ethanol subsidies (washingtonmonthly.com)
• End of the line for ethanol? (hotair.com)
• Coburn, DeMint Turn to Killing Corn Ethanol Subsidies (news.firedoglake.com)
• Al Gore Comes Clean About His Support Of Corn-Based Ethanol (iowntheworld.com)
• Ethanol has been a huge failure. Will we learn from it? (4simpsons.wordpress.com)
• Al Gore's Ethanol Epiphany (online.wsj.com)