The point of the post is Sarah's ethanol flip-flop, in support of Trump.
Exactly! Ted Cruz 2016!
Gee, a NYT hit-piece against Trump and Palin.
How is that possible?
Last night in Cherokee, Iowa, Cruz said again that he believed in “a gradual phaseout” of the mandate over five years.
Ethanol right thru his presidency if he’s the one! What a FRAUD!
Cruz is on the record wanting to get rid of oil subsidies too... Which will no doubt come up in Texas, or one of the other oil states. And I predict he will stick to his guns. Because he always does.
Women were laughing and gasping as Gail Collins reminded them of how far they have come since the 1960s — from the days when a woman could be kicked out of traffic court for wearing slacks, or barred from teaching if her pregnancy showed.
Asked by an audience member if that progress could be reversed by conservative political forces or economic decline, Collins shook her head emphatically. “I don’t think so,†she said. “This is something that moves in one direction.â€
The corn ethanol lobby gets a big break in Obama’s 2015 budget proposal.
The corn ethanol industry has a long history of receiving federal taxpayer subsidies. One of the biggest subsidies – the $6 billion-per-year Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit – was finally allowed to expire in 2011 after a Senate amendment to eliminate it offered by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., passed by a 73-27 margin. (The underlying bill ultimately failed to pass, but the amendment signaled that the days of the ethanol industry’s rule on Capitol Hill were over). So, the corn ethanol lobby pivoted to maximize taxpayer subsidies and turned to USDA to secure ethanol blender pump subsidies through the rural energy program which was originally designed to promote rural solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal projects. Congress even specifically barred corn ethanol from receiving taxpayer subsidies through it and other energy title programs in the 2008 Farm Bill. But in 2011 USDA began to allow blender pump subsidies to qualify for these payments since efforts to secure more subsidies through Congress were unsuccessful.
So it was great news that the (otherwise terrible) 2014 farm bill (officially the Agricultural Act of 2014) prevents the mature corn ethanol industry from receiving subsidies to purchase pumps dispensing higher blends of corn ethanol.
Now for the bad news. Less than a month after signing the farm bill into law, the president proposed new subsidies for ethanol blender pumps in his FY 2015 budget proposal. The overall budget was released last Tuesday, with detailed back up documents following in the last few days. Buried on page 158 of the “Analytical Perspectives†document, released Monday, is up to $200 million in new advanced energy manufacturing tax credits for the “construction of infrastructure that contributes to networks of refueling stations that serve alternative fuels,†or in other words, more subsidies for corn ethanol blender pumps and other alternative fuel infrastructure projects. Such is the power of the corn ethanol lobby.
I say let the corn lobby compete in the free market without government aid. Allow the oil companies to offer both the blended (with ethanol)and the old unblended (without ethanol) gasoline to the consumer. Then let the consumer choose what is best for him based on the pros and cons of each product not what the EPA and Agriculture department think is best for us.
There is no shortage of petroleum now ( and never has been). So why blend expensive government subsidized (that means we the taxpayers are the source of the aid) corn ethanol with the cheaper refined gasoline when the Iowa farmers could export that corn to feed the starving nations of the world and make a handsome profit on the world grain market?
Trump supports the big corn farmers and their ethanol interests. Cruz proposes another way. Cruz takes heat for offering a alternative that will benefit both the taxpayers, the corn producers, and the country’ balance of trade. But Cruz is not a businessman, so what does he know.
Folks, we are never going to improve our balance of trade by burning our corn for fuel. I know, it’s too complex for the Trump supporters to see any logic in changing this madness. Whatever Trump, being the businessman with the proven track record who is always right, says floats their boat. The country is going to hell financially creating more and more debt and Trump wants to continue supporting the ethanol subsidy program. That does not make sense to me. But that’s why I like Cruz on this issue.