Radio ads hit Iowa: 'Politicians like Ted Cruz are the worst kind'

Washington Examiner ^

[springwater13]

Ted Cruz is under attack. The Texas senator's rise in Iowa presidential surveys has attracted criticism from all sides.

America's Renewable Future, a bipartisan political group with the support of ethanol and agricultural industry workers, unleashed new digital and radio ads attacking Cruz in Iowa. The senator's opposition to ethanol mandates has drawn the ire of ARF, whose ads claim that Cruz's policy proposals "threaten rural Iowa and thousands of jobs."

"Politicians like Ted Cruz are the worst kind: Hypocrites," the ad says. "There are millions of reasons Ted Cruz supports Big Oil instead of Iowa farmers. Call politician Ted Cruz. Tell him to stop being a hypocrite and support Iowa jobs."

Cruz opposes the Renewable Fuel Standard, which determines the amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels that must be blended into gasoline. Annette Sweeney, a former Republican state representative and ARF co-chair, said Cruz has not been honest about his opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard.

[jjotto]

The ad is mostly wasting money. Cruz has a strong grass roots operation in Iowa and the support of many GOP office-holders in Iowa as well. Ethanol is simply not as important an issue in Iowa as many would have us believe. A lot of problems are considered much more important.

[Fai Mao]

I agree with you

What I meant is that Cruz is not a hypocrite because he hasn’t changed his position on this or even tried to soften his stance.

I have I think come to the point where II favor Trump over Cruz.

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

I see a problem. Only a Democrat would be gullible enough to believe this ad.

[American Constitutionalist]

TRUST and the CONSTITUTION matters.

TRUSTed and ELECTed , duely ELECTed and TRUSTed by the Constitutional citizens of the state of Texas.

Ted Cruz, were liberties and freedom matter.

Donald Trump wants to continue the NSA’s abuse.

[newgeezer]

Ted Cruz supports Big Oil

Does he? Is he calling for an end to ALL subsidies, not only those which prop up the ethanol industry?

Ted Cruz is my candidate. I am a Cruz volunteer. And I intend to ask him these questions next chance I get.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

"threaten rural Iowa and thousands of jobs."

This is the difficulty with arguing against price supports and special favors for business. It's easy to point to the jobs lost by removing price supports, but impossible to point to the jobs created in their place, all over the country.

[jaydee770]

Per http://www.eia.gov/

Of the top 5 countries the US imports oil from, only 17% originates in the middle east:

Top five countries
Canada (37%)
Saudi Arabia (13%)
Mexico (9%)
Venezuela (9%)
Iraq (4%)

I’d rather the corn be used for food, livestock and exported rather than turned into fuel. If they *must* agonize over that 17%, we can grow cane, switchgrass or whatever for ethanol production instead of corn. It is the height of idiocy to waste a food crop when there are *HIGHLY* viable alternative crops.

Now, I would love nothing more than to tell the Saudi’s that they can eat their oil because we no longer need it *AND* sell them corn at $100/bushel (and see how they like the shoe on the other foot). But diverting corn for ethanol production has such a large ripple effect that it is not smart — especially since it has not put an appreciable dent in middle-east oil imports and will certainly never replace them. We need to look elsewhere for that.

Cruz has made it clear that we should be developing/availing ourselves of *all* our resources. I’ve heard it said that we are our own “Saudi Arabia” when it comes to natural gas and coal, we just need an administration and congress to get runaway govt regs/restrictions (EPA/Greenies and DOE) out of the way.

[Darth Reardon]

My car and pickup are designed to handle ethanol gasoline. My small equipment are not.

I've heard this argument about small engines forever, but in the 40 odd years I've been using ethanol blended gas, I've never noticed anything "special" about small engines that makes them prone to damage from ethanol. And at this point, if they can't handle the blend, that's on the engine manufacturers, IMO.

If people are seeing issues with small engines, I suspect it is because of the way they are used. With a car, you fill up, use the gas in a week or two, and get more. But with small engines, often you'll (not saying you personally, of course) buy a five gallon can which sits around gathering moisture out of the air for the few months it takes to go through.

That being said, I think the blend idea is stupid, and mandates and subsidies are just down right wrong.

[Darth Reardon]

Oh yeah, small engines also tend to have carborators, which, over time, tend to require more maintenance than fuel injection. If small engines required more fuel system maintenance, it would be easy to attribute that to a fuel issue, but that doesn’t make it true (or false).

[Mariner]

"Bipartisan ...eh?"

Count on it.

Republicans, mostly, support ethanol subsidy.

[diamond6]

Your questions do not address the cronyism or corporate welfare. I’m convinced there’s a lot of “greasing” the palms (pun intended) concerning this crap.

I’m sick and tired of politics getting in the way of true economic sense. Government budgets are the real “voodoo economics”, and this ridiculous shell game has to stop.

I also don’t believe ethanol as an “alternative fuel” puts much of a dent into how much we import from the Middle East.

I am not willing to accept having the government to farmers to produce corn for inefficient and more costly fuel, with the false premise of it being more “green”.

But that’s just me - and MANY other true conservatives...

[diamond6]

I meant:

I am not willing to accept having the government WELFARE to farmers to produce corn for inefficient and more costly fuel, with the false premise of it being more “green”.

[DannyTN]

If Cruz was against Ethanol and laid out arguments like you are doing, I’d respect him more. But when he says, “government shouldn’t be picking winners or losers”, it demonstrates a blind allegiance to an ideology.

There are times when government does need to pick. The classic example is when local government allows a monopoly to an energy producer, water company or cable company because the infrastructure costs are too high. In that case if government doesn’t choose, companies won’t invest. And what community wants 5 lines going down the highway? There are valid reasons other than cronyism why communities choose to have monopolies.

The founding fathers choosing protective tariffs were picking American industries over foreign industries. They literally viewed the tariff as a tax on foreigners wanting to do business in our economy.

The fact that we only buy 17% of our oil imports from middle east companies is a weak argument, because oil is fungible. Someone else will just buy from them. But if we can reduce the total demand for world oil, then that helps defund them.

If other crops are more viable alternatives that should certainly be considered.

There is an argument that says that we should buy their oil and keep ours in the ground until theirs runs out. But if we are liquidating our country to buy their oil then it doesn’t make sense.

[TribalPrincess2U]

Capitalism happens because of oil, put here by God for us to use.
They hate Capitalism. They want us go third world.

[TribalPrincess2U]

Capitalism happens because of oil, put here by God for us to use.
They hate Capitalism. They want us go third world.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Good points, all.
I started using premium gas five or six years ago. My chainsaws are over 20 year old.

Yes, I used blended gas when they were new, but always made sure the fuel tank was empty before they were winter stored.

[jaydee770]

When Govt picks winners and losers in your example (”...energy producer, water company or cable company because the infrastructure costs are too high...”) that is an *excellent* example of an issue that should be solely within the purview of the states. If that is controlled at the federal level, then the end result is Floridians subsidizing a cable operator in Alaska.

I get what you are saying, but other than tariff’s at the point of entry, the Federal Govt needs to stay out of the domestic marketplace as much as possible. From town to town, county to county and state to state, there are too many different market factors for the putz’s in D.C. to be messing with.

What the Fed can do (in line with Cruz’s point) is get out of the way. Case in point — we haven’t built a new refinery since the 70’s because of Fed Rules/Regs. The Keystone pipeline would move more product far cheaper than the current truck/train logstics. It is darned *rare* when the Fed govt improves a domestic situation by getting involved.

So, I’m with Cruz. We’ve never truly had a free market in modern times because we have had federal overreach by orders of magnitude, at least as far back as I can remember. I think it’s high time we try letting the domestic market operate with little to no fed intervention and let each state/county/town manage it’s own as they see fit. I’d like to see the fed stick to managing tariff’s so other countries can’t intentionally trade at a loss in an effort to kill the US market (for one example).