Another Chapter in the Book of Unintended Consequences

Government knew what was best and it acted.

This is where we are now:

The heavily subsidized ethanol industry is the latest to seek a federal bailout. If there is any industry that deserves to go bankrupt, it's this one. Time has come to stop putting food in our gas tanks.

The bailout-seeking domestic auto industry has been criticized as being unproductive and inefficient. It hasn't been helped by mandated fuel economy standards that have done little to reduce our dependence on foreign energy or help the environment. Now the fuel we have been mandated to put in our cars, equally unproductive and inefficient, is also seeking a bailout.

Ethanol never made much sense economically or environmentally. It never would have made it to market without congressional mandates and huge subsidies. Having the first presidential contest in the corm state of Iowa didn't hurt either. With oil prices plummeting, it is even less competitive — if it ever was.

The product has benefited from a tax credit paid to gasoline producers to blend gasoline with ethanol; a federal fuel economy standard that sets a minimum amount of ethanol to be blended; and a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff on cheaper imported ethanol made in places like Brazil. Brazilian ethanol is made from sugar, not corn. But corn is grown in Iowa, and Brazilians can't vote.

Read the whole article.

This is just one more benevolent boondoggle in a long line of benevolent boondoggles that our federal government has misguidedly gotten us involved in, all because they do not have the wisdom to use the truths of economic laws to their advantage. If these government do-gooders were rocket scientists, all of their projects would take shape without considering gravity.

Let us hope that those in power have the foresight to drop this monster dead in its tracks, regardless of how Iowans vote.