Posted on 01/04/2016 7:05:50 AM PST by Isara
DES MOINES, Iowa - Ted Cruz arrives Monday for his first Iowa trip of 2016, but he won't just be battling Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. He'll been fending off the state's influential corn lobby.
As Cruz kicks off a six-day bus tour across the state, his critics in the state's ethanol industry will be trailing close behind in a RV. They're hoping to highlight the Texas senator's opposition to a federal mandate that ethanol be mixed into gasoline at each of Cruz's planned 28 stops.
"We're going to be turning out all of our allies," said Eric Branstad, the son of longtime Iowa Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and the state director for America's Renewable Future. The group supports the so-called the Renewable Fuel Standard, which Cruz has vocally opposed. "Iowans can't trust him and we have a duty to let them know why."
In addition to trailing Cruz's bus, the group is buying newspaper, radio and digital ads to shadow Cruz, and launching robo-calls to Iowans a month before the caucuses. At one point the group considered having someone dressed in a giant corn-on-the-cob costume stalk Cruz across the state. The idea was ultimately scrapped.
"We thought about bringing 'Captain Cornelius' but ultimately that's not something that we're doing," said spokeswoman Majda Sarkic of the mascot the corn-growing industry has used previously.
Other pro-ethanol forces have hit Cruz, as well. A group called the Iowa Progress Project, run by Nick Ryan, who also works for a super PAC supporting Mike Huckabee, has aired $200,000 in anti-Cruz TV and radio ads over the issue.
The fact that Cruz has topped recent Iowa polls despite his opposition to the renewable fuel standard has the corn-industry nervous. The issue has long been perceived as a third-rail of Iowa politics and the agriculture industry here wants to keep it that way.
In 2012, two politicians who supported the standard, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, finished atop the pack. Those who didn't, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, finished far behind. And in 2008, Barack Obama backed the standard in his primary against Hillary Clinton.
America's Renewable Future has vowed to mobilize tens of thousands of caucus-goers next month.
"Ted Cruz's policy in the White House would be as its always been for him - devastate Iowa's farmers and its economy in order to pad the pockets of the oil industry," Branstad said.
Cruz's allies have attacked the fuel standard as a handout for "Big Corn." "The Governor of Iowa is a Big Corn cheerleader, and his son is running a SuperPAC hitting Cruz for not bowing to worship Big Corn," Cruz supporter and former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli wrote to supporters last week. "Tsk, tsk."
The business portion of Cruz' plan is effectively a VAT.
The plan would affect all service businesses in the same way, so all service businesses in this sector would have to raise their prices accordingly to remain profitable.
(Additionally, capital investments are subtracted from gross revenues.)
Here is an analysis of the overall effect of his plan by the Tax Foundation.
Looks like a radical plan that will trigger a recession...no thanks.
Seriously?
Trump didn't even surface until June.
Trump didn't even surface until June.
Trump tells GOP audience: Avoid Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush (January 24, 2015)
Why are you ATTACKING me ? THIS level of HATE is outrageous !
!
Invite Jesus into your life !
So what is it? Are you saying Trump isn't for ethanol crony subsidies? Are you saying he wastn' for crony TARP? For crony Stimulus? For crony auto bail out?
I don't need meds. You need a history lesson,
But Bruce, all they can do is attack me - they cannot refute a single syllable of what I wrote.
you have to forgive mac truck...he’s economically a “special needs” student.
I hope you noticed that the heads did explode...could not refute anything.
you’ll have to excuse poor ole jbsb....he seriously thinks ethanol is just as good an energy source as oil. He seriously thinks it’s only possible to be anti ethanol if you’re “owned” by the oil industry.
His teeny tiny microbial mind cannot conceptualize the idea that maybe people are in FAVOR of low cost oil and gas because it’s GOOD FOR EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN! He’s just kind of lost frankly.
enjoy your ruined engines and higher food prices..... I can’t believe you actually wrote that.
Big oil is involved in ethanol production so that hardly makes sense.
Not a one. The thread is actually very entertaining.
Here is Kudlow's take on the Republican proposals.
Most of the GOP candidates have pro-growth tax-cutting plans that would lower marginal tax rates on personal and business income. These plans would reinvigorate the incentive rewards for work, saving, and investment. Good.
But two candidates, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, have proposed value-added taxes (VATs) on the corporate side. I think this is a big mistake, one that opens the door to big-government mischief.
By collecting VATs from businesses, and not listing them on customer receipts, the true costs for workers and consumers are hidden. The VAT also taxes labor and capital on top of existing burdens.
You can argue that these VATs are low, at 14.5 percent for Paul and 16 percent for Cruz. But like mushrooms and mustard seeds, these rates flourish once planted. (See Europe.) The Tax Foundation estimates that more than 70 percent of total taxes would eventually come from these hidden business VATs.
Simple and low flat-tax rates are a terrific idea. But not if supported by a VAT. And down through the years I have argued that if you want a sales tax, a consumption tax, or a VAT, you need to first repeal the 16th amendment, which launched the income tax. Otherwise, in the name of flat-tax reform, I fear we'd be opening the door to an even larger Leviathan.
So we elect a guy who secures the border, but then implements a big, activist government agenda. How is that a win?
It’s not a win, but seems like a lot won’t figure that out until it’s too late.
That’s the perennial problem with a VAT. OTOH, the payroll tax that Cruz is eliminating, and which is offset by the VAT, is just as invisible. And overall the plan would have great economic benefits.
Regardless, tax reform will have to be hashed out with Congress and will probably end up being a flat or fair tax.
So why not just cut the business tax to something below 20%?
Its much more transparent to the taxpayer, easier to pass quickly through Congress, and provides more kick with less dislocations to the domestic economy.
The Cruz/Paul tax plan seems like a non-starter...
Been using ethanol blends for around 30 years now. Back then, before detergents became common in gasoline, it was normal to replace a filter after ethanol started cleaning the crap out of the fuel systems but, that's it for me, certainly nothing that could be called a "ruined engine." (I currently have a car with over 322,000 miles on it.) So, I tend to put that right up there with the similarly-popular notion that higher octane delivers more MPG and/or longer engine life in nearly every application.
"Higher food prices" is likewise a common charge but I've yet to have anyone explain how ethanol production significantly affects food prices. It's not like we eat that kind of corn (cattle, hogs, and chickens do, and they still eat ethanol's protein byproducts). And other things that compete for the corn (e.g. corn flakes, starch, syrup) or the land (mostly soybeans, some wheat, maybe a tiny bit of sweet corn) are among the cheapest inputs in whatever food we do consume.
But if I'm missing something, I'm willing to listen.
look you’re obviously on the corn gravy train in Iowa either directly or indirectly, and you’re lying your fanny off to justify your totally statist establishment crony position.
That couldn’t be further from the truth on all counts.
You, sir, are full of shit and full of yourself.
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