The American Spectator

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Conservatives Against Corn

2.19.08 @ 12:01AM

KNEE HIGH BY JULY
Re: R. Andrew Newman's Where Corn Counts:

I suppose I'd better respond to Andrew Newman's article, since it was probably my article on biofuels last week that touched off his criticisms. Interestingly I have Nebraska ties as well. My late father-in-law and I used to have this argument all the time -- and he was a Democrat!

Although I realize ethanol subsidies have become the equivalent of Social Security in the farm belt, I don't think that's any way to ignore the long-range consequences of all this. The venture into corn ethanol has been a truly tragic policy mistake that is going to come back to haunt us sooner or later, and the sooner we face it, the less haunting it is going to be.

It is simply crazy to be subsidizing farmers to burn up close to 30 percent of our corn crop each year just to pretend we are accomplishing something about energy. Corn ethanol is wildly uneconomical, which means it is probably losing energy. Why else do we need the 51-cents-per-gallon tax exemption, plus all the "renewable portfolios" that are driving it. (The soils that are exhausted from monocropping, plus the aquifers drained by intensive irrigation, by the way, are not renewable.) All this talk about how Brazil is running on ethanol is another wild fairy tale from environmentalists. Two-thirds of the vehicles in Brazil run on diesel fuel and have nothing to do with ethanol. The slice of the market that runs off the sugar crop is relatively small -- and even that requires huge subsidies. When you put all this on top of our farm subsidies, you have a situation where the rest of the country is simply shipping money to the Midwest to buy farm votes. I realize the Senate and the Electoral College are heavily weighted toward the farm states -- two votes for New York, two votes for Nebraska -- but this is ridiculous. Is the whole Presidential election going to come down to a referendum on biofuels?

I would suggest people in Nebraska take a comprehensive look on how to bring down trade barriers on agricultural products in both Europe and America and try to open up world markets. American agriculture could thrive with all kinds of speciality crops. But paying farmers to incinerate almost a third of the corn crop each year is ridiculous. Why not just pile the whole crop up in a bonfire and pay farmers to light the match?
-- William Tucker
Nyack, New York

Are we to pretend that bio-fuels are any less the preposterosity than they have been shown to be in order to win an election?

Andrew Newman would leave this discussion for another day. When? After we have fraudulently obtained the votes of those in the farm belt by allowing them to believe there is a future in this boondoggle?

Sometimes I just can't believe what I read on TAS.
-- Robert Randall
Nashville, Tennessee

Mr. Newman, freelance journalist in western Nebraska, is to be complimented for clearly articulating why I have no choice every time I pull up to the pump but to remove 10% of high energy and extremely efficient gasoline and replace it with low energy and extremely inefficient ethanol. I have no choice because our elected representatives have agreed with Mr. Newman and have decided that it is the role of the federal government to mandate what I can pump. These same elected representatives have decided that fuel economy standards are to be increased by fiat, so under the same Capitol roof they reduce fuel economy [ethanol] and demand greater fuel economy.

I have exactly one question for Mr. Newman, for which I would be most grateful for a straight answer. At what point did it become "right" for every man in every state to "rightfully" demand that his elected
representative go to Washington and do his best to steal from the taxpayers in the other 49 states?

Mr. Newman's electoral math may be impeccable; I strongly suspect that it is. But in tallying his numbers does he realize that he is writing the epitaph of what made the United States what it is, or perhaps more precisely what it used to be? Has he sounded the death knell of all reasoning save that of counting the votes of people who are motivated solely by personal selfishness? By that same calculus, the votes are there to strangle U.S. domestic oil and natural gas production, hence no drilling in ANWR, no drilling off California, no drilling off Florida and no drilling off the East Coast. Instead, the votes demand turning food into inefficient flammables for automobiles.

If "we the people" are now federalized corn counters, count me out.
-- Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

More words, more confusion. I keep waiting for a straightforward definition of "conservative." I keep waiting for a straightforward definition of 'liberal." This article is just confusing blather. Read this quote from the article: "While there is not space today to elaborate sufficiently upon those definitions and assertions." It is because the author has no definitions.
-- Bruce Purdie

Andrew Newman seems to be a bit peeved at Movement Conservatives. If by Movement Conservatives, he means those who find our pork laden, earmark soaked, entitlement rich federal budget a travesty, then I suppose he is correct in his anger. The bio-fuel craze is an example of a "solution" in search of a problem. This 30 something year old relic of a program from the Carter Years finally found a powerful ally in the AGW Movement. Corn farmers now have found a veritable pile of riches - endless riches - as federal mandates most certainly will cause an endless demand spike on our corn supply. Now that farmers are in the energy business, they too can enjoy the profits of Exxon and BP. All it took was a weak lame duck President, a perceived global catastrophe (AGW catastrophes are always something in the future, just over the horizon), and a Congress and regulations lobby that are insatiable.

Andrew Newman isn't bothered in the least that global food supplies in a period of 18 months have shrunk to less than 4 weeks, and that there isn't enough biomass on the earth to supply our nation with "clean burning" fuels for even a month; as long as corn farmers are happy in places like Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska, all is well with the world. Newman is the perfect example of what happens when an entire class of the electorate is held in thrall to the Beltway. He says he is a populist and a small C conservative. Actually, men like will vote for whom ever promise to keep the endless gravy train of subsidies, price controls, and "investments" going. Most Americans empathize with the plight of today's farmers -- that is small farmers. Most Americans tolerate paying extra for food in order to allow family farms to continue. However, this empathy will not last long when they realize that the double digit inflation they see at the grocery store is caused by the ethanol industry, and that the ethanol industry owes its entire existence to tax payer subsides, and congressional mandates. In Newman's world, civics is reduced to an all against all fight for federal tax dollars and congressional favors. And any would be President must bow to these "interests" if he wants their vote. Gone is the debate whether these programs benefit anyone other than the program recipient.

Letter to the Editor

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