Posted on 12/09/2010 12:18:57 PM PST by red meat conservative
As conservatives, we understand that not everything that is dubbed as a tax cut is a good thing. Liberals are wrought to describe handouts as tax cuts and tax cuts as handouts. Thus, the extension of the regressive, job killing, price hiking ethanol subsidies are not good tax cuts and should not be extended. Yet, through all of the discussion concerning the deal on the Bush tax cuts, there is a total blackout concerning the deal with the ethanol subsidies. Tim Carney reports at the Washington Examiner, that Chuck Grassley (R-Ethanol) is claiming that a one year extension of these subsidies is part of the deal. He draws attention to this article from the Quad-City Times:
"A deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts also includes action on ethanol and biodiesel credits, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Tuesday. The details aren’t clear yet, but Grassley told reporters that the ethanol and biodiesel tax credits would get a temporary extension, through 2011. The biodiesel credit of $1 a gallon expired last year, and farm-state lawmakers have blamed the expiration for the idling of biodiesel plants. The ethanol credit, at 45 cents per gallon, is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Grassley said the biodiesel credit extension also included applying it retroactively to 2010."
Republicans have already agreed to a permanent unemployment welfare system in order to extend the tax cuts for just two years. They also agreed to bring back the death tax, albeit at a lower rate. Are we now going to agree to more corn welfare for special interest groups? According to the CBO, the ethanol subsidies cost us $6 billion annually. The payroll tax cut will cost social security $120 billion and the unemployment welfare will cost $57 billion. How much more are we going to bankrupt the nation in order to make a deal with Obama on something that he is already compelled to support? Where is this deal anyway? What else is hidden in this compromise? Could Senator Kyl provide us with a hard copy?
There is currently a robust debate among conservatives whether the current tax deal is the best we could get from Obama. But don't the supporters want to see the full copy of the deal before they sign off on it? Is there any limit to the number of poison pills that the deal would contain before Republicans will oppose it? How can we blindly trust an invisible deal made with the devil that already contains extraneous details that are detrimental to this country? I guess it is all about compromise for some GOPers. To hell with the details.
Grassly is protecting the corn farmers of Iowa, not interested in the “greater good” of cutting subsidies.
I lump all of these articles into the same category: Watching the beast kick and scream, clawing at any apparent lifeline as its life blood flows from a thousand cuts. And many of those cuts come from grabbing sharp “lifelines”.
By “the beast” I am referring to western civilization, including how it is implemented in the far east.
DeMint is correct in opposing this crap “compromise”.
PS, I want Demint to run in 2012 with Sarah, either as the front runner or as VP. Either way I will vote for the guy.
Congress should issue war bonds again. This time the $ goes to fund bio-fuel research and people like Harkin and Grassley can put their money where their big mouths are.
And all these patiotic farmers and farm pimps could invest (their own money)and become overnight millionaires!
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