The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Conservatives Against Corn

2.19.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 4)

Movement Conservatives have been fighting a rear guard action ever since the New Deal. Most Americans, like Andrew Newman, do not see a problem with a Federal Government that consumes over 3 trillion dollars of our wealth annually. And I do admit, it is not often that a deal like our current Energy Program comes along. Besides a growing demand for US grains worldwide, farmers will enjoy an ever growing demand for their biofuels due to congressional intervention. It will be a great racket while it lasts. At least Newman and people like him should just come out and admit the truth: Farmers will be the only people who benefit from the biofuels industry.

At the end of the day, consumers will see ever increasing food prices, gas prices will remain artificially high (ethanol is very difficult to produce and distribute), clear cutting of the globe's rain forests will accelerate, and subsistence grains will be in ever shorter supply. Earlier this month Indonesians rioted due to low supplies of soybeans. Indonesian farmers have given up on soybeans for the much more profitable biofuels. But all of these alleged problems can be ignored -- they are just the irrelevant voices of an outdated group of Movement Conservatives.
-- JP
Indiana

R. Andrew Newman's "Where Corn Counts" makes an excellent point. Conservatives have long been too concerned with ideological purity and "big C" conservatism. It is clear that what we need is more pragmatism and less ideology. If farmers like ethanol subsidies, let 'em have 'em. As the original "compassionate conservative" has repeatedly told us: "When people are hurting, government must help." Or, in this case, "When wealthy farmers want the federal government to spend other people's money on subsidies for an inefficient and ultimately destructive product..." It's not exactly elegant, but you get the idea.

Since "conservatives" are now apparently in the business of doling out largesse in exchange for electoral support, I'd like a new Porsche and a gummint-backed, interest-free mortgage. That would be VERY compassionate and would buy -- er, um "earn" -- my vote.

After all, we need to fill Congress with warm bodies with "R" after their names. Principle, schminciple!
-- Daniel H. Fernald, Ph.D.
Mountainview, California

Mr. Newman makes some excellent points on Republicans respecting its base in the heartland, but I must comment on his criticism of the Club for Growth's anti-subsidized energy policy. While I support bio-fuels and heartland industry, I am concerned with the use of corn as the product employed for bio-fuels. Corn is criticized for providing a poor return of energy compared to that put into the fuel's manufacture, while it increases food prices. I've read that switch grass among corn alternatives is an easy crop to grow, nets far more energy for fuel than corn. It seems win-win to me if our heartland industry would support policies that did not focus on the relatively poor fuel producing corn crop. Its bio-fuel industry could continue to thrive with less reliance on subsidies and impact on other markets that corn is a part of.
-- Brian White
Simsbury, Connecticut

R. Andrew Newman may wax eloquent about the economic salvation of the Farm Belt provided by corn-based biofuels, but I wonder if he understands the price paid for a little more flexibility in enhancing American mobility is just a little more starvation elsewhere in the world.

I am not opposed to biofuels, but perhaps we should be putting more effort into research to produce them from waste materials instead of food grains. There are things more important in life than politics, namely, life itself.
-- Howard Hirsch
Chairman, Lyon County Republican Central Committee
Dayton, Nevada

After reading Mr. Newman's article, "Where Corn Counts," I have a few questions.

Why should the American public subsidize any industry. Farming, ranching and, yes, oil, all enjoy either direct government subsidies, specialized tax exemptions and credits or both. Doctors, accountants, other professionals, service people, and retail merchants enjoy none of these. Why then, farmers?

Because, as Mr. Newman points out, somebody knows where the votes are in this country and they cater to them.

But, using that logic, is not the Conservative Movement composed of voters? Why then does the Republican Party make little or no attempt to cater to those members? Farmers vote as often for Democrats as Republicans, as evidenced by the example given by Mr. Newman; especially when their subsidies are threatened. Conservatives almost always vote for a Republican candidate or they don't vote at all. Yet, Mr. Newman would marginalize Conservative voters, who cost the rest of the country nothing, in favor of the members of an industry that is partially directly funded by tax revenue. Again, why? Perhaps because conservative voters are considered safe Republican voters and therefore, politicians need only pay lip-service to Conservative ideals and need not deliver to insure Conservative votes. He asks if Conservative voters would alienate the voters of mid-America for their own principles thereby allowing Democrats to win election. The answer may turn out to be yes. Conservatives are neither Republicans nor Democrats, they are Conservatives; something that the Republican Party seems not to understand. Conservative voters subscribe to a system of values that are diametrically opposed to those held by liberals. The Republican Party comes closer to embodying those principles than does the Democrat party, by they still fall far short. Finally, Conservatives are for limited government and the control of the economy through market forces. If ethanol is a viable motor fuel, then it should make vast in-roads into the petroleum motor fuel industry. In twenty years, it has not. This is in spite of state and federal subsidies. Ethanol subsidies are just one more way for politicians to enrich themselves. It is a means of buying votes from a segment of the population, at the expense of other segments of the population, nothing more.

Yes, Mr. Newman, the Republican Party, as well as the Democrats, know where the votes are and how to buy them. And they have decided that the farm vote is more important than the Conservative vote.
-- Michael Tobias
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Is your article trying to push bio-fuels which is a stupid idea, or are you trying to push John McCain which is a stupid idea? In either case you rambled all over. Luckily in November we will get rid of McCain. Unfortunately, it will take longer for all the ethanol plants to go out of business proving that a fool and his money are soon parted.
-- Burton Hollabaugh
Marion, Indiana

Mr. Newman is, or course, exactly right. Having read his brilliant and insightful article, I (one of those "small c" conservatives) have seen the light.

Letter to the Editor

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