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Ethanol Kickback: Corn-Fed Hypocrisy
IBD Editorial ^ | December 14, 2010 | Staff

Posted on 12/14/2010 4:43:40 PM PST by Kaslin

Subsidies: As with the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase, the majority leader of the Senate seeks to buy votes for a bill, this time the tax-cut compromise with support for ethanol credits for the rich.

With the tax-cut compromise having made it through the Senate, the Democrats have once again reminded us why the voters threw a good portion of the rascals out in 2010. They continue to act as if the populist revolt against tax-and-spend big government never happened.

To sweeten the deal made between President Obama and Republicans regarding extending all the decade-old Bush tax rates, including those derided by liberals as "tax cuts for the wealthy," Majority Leader Harry Reid added corn sweetener in the form of extending the 45-cents-per-gallon ethanol tax credit.

Call this a tax credit for the wealthy. It's also the poster child for tax-spend-and-elect big government. Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland, the nation's second-largest ethanol producer, has operations in 119 congressional districts for good reason. Helping keep this boondoggle going is the fact that Iowa has the first presidential caucus.

Ethanol is also protected by a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imported from countries like Brazil that can make it from sugar cheaper. The tariff will also be extended. Brazilians can't vote in our elections; Iowans and residents of other corn states can.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has railed against tax cuts for the wealthy and was no fan of the compromise, wanted domestic ethanol to continue to be protected and subsidized. Reid hopes to win the vote of another compromise opponent, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, through the inclusion of an extension of the Section 1603 cash grant program for the renewable energy industry.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; US: Illinois; US: Iowa
KEYWORDS: adm; dingyharry; energy; ethanol; harryreid; oil; reid; taxcuts
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1 posted on 12/14/2010 4:43:42 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Con- C0n


2 posted on 12/14/2010 4:46:50 PM PST by screaminsunshine (Americanism vs Communism)
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To: Kaslin

Con- C0n


3 posted on 12/14/2010 4:46:50 PM PST by screaminsunshine (Americanism vs Communism)
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To: Kaslin

Con- Con


4 posted on 12/14/2010 4:46:52 PM PST by screaminsunshine (Americanism vs Communism)
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To: Kaslin

They’re NOT rascals! They’re Communist thieves and assholes! Kill’em all!


5 posted on 12/14/2010 4:50:28 PM PST by Doc Savage (Stay Thirsty My Friend!!)
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To: Kaslin
They continue to act as if the populist revolt against tax-and-spend big government never happened.

It's almost like they are sh!ttin' in one hand and wishin' in the other and monitoring which one loads up the fastest.

6 posted on 12/14/2010 5:01:01 PM PST by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: Kaslin

More corruption from the District of Corruption.

Merry Christmas


7 posted on 12/14/2010 5:09:14 PM PST by bray (Sarah Palin will destroy the Repub Party, hopefully!)
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To: Kaslin

8 posted on 12/14/2010 5:18:49 PM PST by Iron Munro (Those who claim you owe them a living are cannibals seeking to survive by consuming you.)
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To: Kaslin

Bottom line: it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it contains.

Ethanol is not for driving, ethanol is for drinking, ethanol is for a Merry Christmas.


9 posted on 12/14/2010 5:34:38 PM PST by 353FMG (The peoples of the West will have to choose between ISLAM and their country.)
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To: steelyourfaith; Nachum; markomalley; Carlucci; grey_whiskers; meyer; WL-law; Para-Ord.45; ...

Ping


10 posted on 12/14/2010 6:30:09 PM PST by raptor22 (The truth will set us free)
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To: Kaslin

Centrally planned economies always fail.


11 posted on 12/14/2010 6:55:19 PM PST by Eric Blair 2084 (Beware of the Socialist Government-Academia Grant Junkie-Rich "non-profit"-Liberal Media Complex)
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To: raptor22; Kaslin

Cornholio!


12 posted on 12/14/2010 7:50:00 PM PST by SouthTexas (WE are the Wave)
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To: Iron Munro

To be funny, humor must have an element of truth to it.

With our mountains, and mountains, and mountains, of surplus feed and food stuffs I fail to detect any truth in that cartoon.

See my tagline.


13 posted on 12/14/2010 7:57:55 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
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To: Kaslin

Well I’m sure glad that the Republicans got to business immediately by protecting the interest of the top 5% of Americans and the the corn subsidies...


14 posted on 12/14/2010 9:09:26 PM PST by Tempest (Christian before conservative)
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To: Tempest

Sometimes it seems that one of the cardinal rules here is that it is only a problem if the Democrats do it.


15 posted on 12/14/2010 10:26:07 PM PST by Eyes Unclouded ("The word bipartisan means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." -George Carlin)
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To: raptor22; meyer; Normandy; Whenifhow; TenthAmendmentChampion; Clive; scripter; Darnright; WL-law; ..
Thanx raptor22 !

 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

16 posted on 12/15/2010 3:49:12 AM PST by steelyourfaith (ObamaCare Death Panels: a Final Solution to the looming Social Security crisis ?)
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To: Kaslin

De fund ethonol. Or is the payoff money too great? Where is the tea party?


17 posted on 12/15/2010 5:43:22 AM PST by G-Man 1 (-- get)
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To: 353FMG

“Bottom line: it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it contains.”

They wouldn’t be able to get away with this crap if Americans knew basic, high-school science.


18 posted on 12/15/2010 8:36:59 AM PST by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: Balding_Eagle

“With our mountains, and mountains, and mountains, of surplus feed and food stuffs I fail to detect any truth in that cartoon.”

Really. Well, in this area, there are lots and lots of people working for between $8 and $10 per hour, and the cheapest store in town charges more than that for their cheapest pot roast.

Presuming there are mountains of surplus feeds and food stuffs—as was famously said regarding UFOs—where are they?


19 posted on 12/15/2010 8:43:29 AM PST by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: dsc
where are they?

Go to any farming area in our country. Even this year, when the corn crop came in under expectations, the piles of corn are endless, and the domestic market for that corn is limited. Same for soybeans, wheat, rye, flax, you name it and we have too much to consume ourselves.

We have such an abundance of surplus that many farmers can wastes resources on low quality, low yield, 'natural food crops' for which foolish consumers will pay many times as much as they need to for normal food. And still we have too much food.

We can burn our food to power our cars, heat our homes, and still we have surplus that we have to ship elsewhere to get rid of it.

Go look in any dumpster behind any eatery. It's filled with waste food.

The November issue of Successful Farmer, a trade magazine wrote about how the huge oversupply of hogs nearly bankrupted the entire American hog industry back in April. Just this month in a special marketing issue they wrote an article entitled "Boatloads of Meat" focusing on how exports of our meats are critical to the survival of our meat producing industry

This 'problem' has been brought about by huge supplies of relatively cheap feed grains which farmers are trying to make more valuable by feeding them to livestock and producing meat.

Never before in the thousands of years of history of the world have so few farmers produced so much food for so many people for so little money. Never before have a people spent so little of their income on such a wide variety of high quality food.

My tagline speaks a truth that has dogged the American Farmer for many, many, decades.

20 posted on 12/15/2010 10:19:07 AM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
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