I'm pretty sure National Review editor Rich Lowry browses RTP&GG because this article he just wrote at Real Clear Politics could have been lifted right out of our article, and Jeff's comments! He adds some follow-on information if you read the whole thing, that tends to confirm Jeff's fears that Republicans aren't going to be able to rein in the goverment bloat. However, remember this is still the lame duck Democratic Congress. I am still confident this thing will be brought under control, at least to a certain extend. Anyway, some quotes from Lowry's article that may seem oddly familiar:When Al Gore drops an environmental fad, it has truly reached its expiration date.The Porkmeisters pushing hard for this now are a bipartisan group: chiefly, the two Senators from Iowa, Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Chuck Grassley. This budget proposal with the ethanol subsidies looked like it was going to pass with Republican support as well as President Obama's. But, after the full extent of the pork has been revealed, many Republicans are backing away from this initially-bipartisan effort that at first look didn't seem unreasonable.
In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington's gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America's corn crop.
"It is not good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," the former vice president and Noble Peace Prize recipient said, referring to corn-based ethanol. He called the fuel "a mistake," and confessed one reason he fell so hard for it is that he "had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa." These farmers vote in the First in the Nation caucuses and practically insist that their favored presidential candidates drink ethanol at breakfast and hail it as the nectar of the gods.
More:
The multiple layers of subsidization have their own perversity. Since there's already a mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline, the tax credit is giving away money for something that would happen anyway. Environmental groups say this pads the bottom line of Big Oil. Harry de Gorter of the free-market Cato Institute has a more complicated take -- the subsidy decreases the cost and therefore the price of gasoline, effectively subsidizing its consumption. Your Congress at work.But, read the whole thing if you're interested in this and if you want to see how close we came to Lowry's article!
