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End the Ethanol Subsidies! (Congressional inaction would save taxpayers $6 billion, and bring other benefits too)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#p_dreissen">Paul Driessen</a> -- November 23, 2010

What am I missing? Is there some aspect of our inane energy policies that I am failing to understand, much less appreciate?

“We the People” just booted a boatload of spendthrifts out of Congress, after they helped engineer a $1.3 trillion deficit on America’s FY-2010 budget and balloon our cumulative national debt to $13.7 trillion.

And the “bipartisan White House deficit reduction panel” chimed in with a 50-page draft proposal, offering suggestions for $3.8 trillion in future budgetary savings. The proposal targets $100 billion in Defense Department weapons programs, healthcare benefits and overseas bases. It also proposes a $13-billion cutback in the federal workforce and lining out $400 million in unnecessary printing costs.

Yet, amazingly, not even this independent commission was willing to eliminate the $6-billion sacred cow of annual ethanol subsidies!