US Action News

The Cato Institute calls farm subsidies “environmentally destructive corporate welfare, with more than 70 percent of aid going to the largest 10 percent of agribusinesses.” Cato calculates that eliminating the program would save $20 billion or more each year.

The real greed lies, mutually, in private “investors” chasing public funds for private profit with the complicity of politicians. Politicians promote energy alternatives and then harvest campaign cash from the recipients of taxpayer handouts.

Even though ethanol uses more energy to produce than gas, causes lower gas mileage per gallon, pollutes more than it helps, and increases the debt the US congress continues the bipartisan ethanol subsidies to big corporations in return for big campaign contributions. The result is higher corn prices which cause higher food prices including meat and dairy products.

Even though ethanol uses more energy to produce than gas, causes lower gas mileage per gallon and pollutes more than it helps, and increases the debt the US congress continues the bipartisan ethanol subsidies to big corporations in return for big campaign contributions. The result is higher food corn prices which cause higher food prices including meat and dairy products.

[E]thanol producers are already barely profitable or losing money due to high corn prices, with current subsidies, it seems to suggest either more government subsidies would be needed to keep producers afloat or more bankrupt producers on the horizon (an ethanol bailout?).

[H]ere are two potential Republican presidential candidates lining up to endorse what amounts to an ongoing bailout of agribusiness and energy companies. Even if ethanol didn’t lead to higher food prices worldwide, doesn’t the conservatives’ supposedly principled objection to bailouts apply here?

The advent of corn ethanol subsidies is a case study in the role money can play in politics.

Thune’s 2012 hopes won’t get out of South Dakota with his paid support of the worst corporate welfare waste of taxpayer money. Ethanol subsidies are opposed by a bipartisan coalition of conservatives and environmental groups.

The real litmus test for ‘South Dakota’s Sarah Palin’ Kristi Noem will be if she follows John Thune’s lead and drinks the ethanol subsidy Kool-aid.

At a cost of nearly $7 billion a year Grassly, Thune and Harkin want ethanol subsidies tied to the tax deal.