President Bush has proposed an additional $770 million in aid to poor countries to address the global food shortage, but as Deroy Murdock, and Ronald Bailey have reported, one of the causes of this food shortage is the fact that land that could be used to produce food for starving people is being diverted to produce biofuels because of subsidies and federal mandates.
Writing of these laws in both the U.S. and Europe, Bailey notes:
Talk about an infuriating example of how the state gets incrementally bigger and bigger. The government sets policies that disrupt global markets, and then after those market disruptions cause problems, the solution is for the governmnt to spend more money to fix the mess it helped create — all the while maintaining the very policies that disruped the market in the first place.
Thanks a lot, President Bush.
