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.
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).