Newt Gingrich loves him some ethanol subsidies! As does Mitch Daniels. And Rick Santorum.
Prompting the question, are there any viable GOP candidates for president in 2012?
WSJ:
The last time these columns were lambasted by a presidential candidate in Iowa, he was Democrat Richard Gephardt and the year was 1988. The Missouri populist won the state caucuses in part on the rallying cry that “we’ve got to stop listening to the editorial writers and the establishment,” especially about ethanol and trade. Imagine our amusement to find Republican Newt Gingrich joining such company.
The former Speaker blew through Des Moines last Tuesday for the Renewable Fuels Association summit, and his keynote speech to the ethanol lobby was as pious a tribute to the fuel made from corn and tax dollars as we’ve ever heard. Mr. Gingrich explained that “the big-city attacks” on ethanol subsidies are really attempts to deny prosperity to rural America, adding that “Obviously big urban newspapers want to kill it because it’s working, and you wonder, ‘What are their values?'”
Mr. Gingrich traced the roots of these supposed antipathies to the 1880s, an observation that he repeatedly tendered “as an historian.” The Ph.D. and star pupil of futurist Alvin Toffler then singled out the Journal’s long-held anti-ethanol views as “just plain flat intellectually wrong.”
Mr. Gingrich is right that ethanol poses an intellectual problem, but it has nothing to do with a culture war between Des Moines and New York City. The real fight is between the House Republicans now trying to rationalize the federal fisc and the kind of corporate welfare that President Obama advanced in his State of the Union. We’ll dwell on this problem not merely because Mr. Gingrich the historian brought it up, but because it and he illustrate so many of the snares facing the modern GOP.
Mr. Gingrich was particularly troubled by our January 22 editorial about food inflation, “Amber Waves of Ethanol,” saying that we “at least ought to use facts that are accurate.” For the record, we cited figures from the Agriculture Department showing that four of every 10 rows of corn now go to ethanol, up from about one of 10 a decade ago.
A Gingrich spokesman said that what his boss meant to say is that this redistribution has a “negligible” effect on global food costs, especially compared to “higher fuel and energy prices and rampant speculation in the commodities markets.”
Here’s how he put in Des Moines, with that special Gingrich nuance: “The morning that I see the folks who are worried about ‘food versus fuel’ worry about the cost of diesel fuel, worry about the cost of commodities on the world market, worry about the inflation the Federal Reserve is building into our system, all of which is going to show up as higher prices, worry about the inefficiencies of big corporations that manufacture and process food products—the morning they do that, I’ll take them seriously.”
The morning Mr. Gingrich read the offending editorial, if he did, he must have overlooked the part about precisely those concerns. He must have also missed our editorial last month raising the possibility that easy money was contributing to another asset bubble in the Farm Belt, especially in land prices. For that matter, he must have missed the dozens of pieces we’ve run in recent years critiquing Fed monetary policy.
Of course, the ethanol boom isn’t due to the misallocation of resources that always stalks inflation. It is the result of decades of deliberate industrial policy, as Mr. Gingrich well knows. In 1998, then Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer tried to kill ethanol’s subsidies for good, only to land in the wet cement that Speaker Gingrich had poured.
Yet today this now-mature industry enjoys far more than cash handouts, including tariffs on foreign competitors and a mandate to buy its product. Supporters are always inventing new reasons for these dispensations, like carbon benefits (nonexistent, according to the greens and most scientific evidence) and replacing foreign oil (imports are up). An historian of Mr. Gingrich’s distinction surely knows all that.
Given that Mr. Gingrich aspires to be President, his ethanol lobbying raises larger questions about his convictions and judgment. The Georgian has been campaigning in the tea party age as a fierce critic of spending and government, but his record on that score is, well, mixed.
As Speaker in 1995, he thought he could govern from Congress, refused to bargain with President Clinton and after a veto was forced to retreat in a way that hurt Bob Dole and nearly cost the House majority. In 1997, he did manage a balanced-budget deal with Mr. Clinton, but the price included phony Medicare cuts on doctors and a new entitlement for children’s health care.
Mr. Gingrich stepped down after the GOP lost House seats in 1998, but he re-emerged in 2003 to campaign for George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit. His personal contribution was to promote the bill’s modest market fillips as epic virtues that lesser minds couldn’t grasp. Instead, the bill damaged the GOP’s fiscal credibility, while Democrats have since rolled back medical savings accounts and private insurance options for seniors.
Now Republicans have another chance to reform government, and a limited window of opportunity in which to do it. The temptation will be to allow their first principles to be as elastic as many voters suspect they are, especially as Mr. Obama appropriates the language of “investments” and “incentives” to transfer capital to politically favored companies. Many Republicans have their own industry favorites, and such parochial interests could undercut their opposition to Mr. Obama’s wider agenda.
So along comes Mr. Gingrich to offer his support for Mr. Obama’s brand of green-energy welfare, undermining House Republicans in the process. In his Iowa speak-power-to-truth lecture, he even suggested that the government should mandate that all new cars in the U.S. be flex-fuel vehicles—meaning those that can run on an ethanol-gas mix as high as 85%—as if King Corn were in any danger of being deposed.
Yet there are currently dozens of flex-fuel models on the market, and auto makers already get a benefit if they sell them, via the prior fuel-economy mandates that did so much to devastate Detroit. The problem is consumers rarely want to pay more for flex-fuel cars when they get 25% to 30% fewer miles per gallon with E85, according to Energy Department data.
Some pandering is inevitable in presidential politics, but, befitting a college professor, Mr. Gingrich insists on portraying his low vote-buying as high “intellectual” policy. This doesn’t bode well for his judgment as a president. Even Al Gore now admits that the only reason he supported ethanol in 2000 was to goose his presidential prospects, and the only difference now between Al and Newt is that Al admits he was wrong.
Gingrich doesn’t much care for Sarah Palin’s unhelpful rhetoric, thinking she should stop and think more before she speaks.
And yet I’ve never heard her touting ethanol subsidies, or seen her sitting with Nancy Pelosi, going on about the virtues of a green economy.
The question I have is this: to whom is Gingrich trying to appeal? What’s his end game? To win the Iowa caucus and then what?
The era of many of us voting for whatever pandering GOP candidate the establishment promotes is over. If that means progressives retain control of the White House, so be it: we can continue to promote strong classical liberal/constitutional conservatives for the House, the Senate, governorships, and state assemblies — and not have to sacrifice our ideals in order to save the country from its increasingly debased establishment political class.
That’s my version of pragmatism.
(h/t Free Republic and Laura Ingraham)
I think Newt’s Bonin’ Pelosi*
*decent name for a band
of course Mr. Daniels supports ethanol… the failshit government of the U.S. tricked a bunch of farmers and businesses in Indiana into investing heavily in the plant and equipment needed for to serve a promised ethanol market. Then congress threatened to say oops nevermind. Well that’s not cool if you’re the governor of Indiana.
If they grew corn in Alaska Palin would be all over ethanol like a mama grizzle on a tasty sammin.
And we shouldn’t have to sacrifice to do the right thing and correct past mistakes, right?
Yeah. When has Palin ever told a powerful industry in her state to take a hike…
Damned revenue-ers!
oh dear
Time was the knowledge that taking an untenable subsidy is tantamount to stealing (i.e., an immoral act) was a commonplace. Of course, it still is an immoral act, just don’t nobody bother to say so these days.
happy, dude, your Palin-boner is casting a pall over the room.
And? That was the policy of McCain’s campaign. Palin? More of the “drill baby, drill” type, if I’m remembering correctly.
And of course, there’s nothing wrong with alternative energy sources. Subsidies are the problem.
By the way, how’s that “drill baby, drill” idea sounding now?
why that sounds like a mighty fine idea I think
Here’s McCain today on ethanol subsidies. Well, a little bit ago, I mean. No telling where he stands today.
Mitch is just trying to keep the price of popcorn shored up because he heard I might be moving and the state will need the cash.
Newt GringrichSelf elimination makes life so easy.
I’m not reflexively against all ag subsidies, but the corn subsidy must die. Ditto the sugar subsidy.
Subsidies should be sunsetted, and that sunset requirement should be in our constitution. If an endeavor can’t manage to limp along by itself, eventually, then it needs to die.
And as far as E-85 goes, remember, these are the same idiots who brought you Dex-Cool.
I agree, Slart.
And just what the fuck does this pinhead think is causing all this rampant speculation?
I’m confuzzled. Ivory soap pure like the wind driven snow is pure Mitch Daniel’s turns dirty dirty whore for the sweet sweet ethanol money and the wee lil’ pikachu is okay wit dat?
Gingrich I don’t really care about because he’s a spent, discredited force.
Not so with Daniels, one way or the other. To my mind, it’s good to give him massive shit about this. It’ll require negative feedback if he’s to change his mind or, more likely, realize that this isn’t a smart political position anymore.
At the same time though, mid-western politicians are merely whores here. The pimps live in Washington. Stop them, otherwise, they’ll always be able to find new whores.
Ernst,
Even before I opened the comment thread, I knew what his response would be…
Look over there! It’s that phoney money-grubbing chillbilly Sarah Palin!!!
I’m very creative when it comes to hyphens. Wow.
my uncle is a huge huge corn farmer … he signs contracts with ethanol people for to take his corn at a certain price
my aunt married very well… not that he didn’t but it’s like a huge fuckload of corn plus moo cows and soybeans and the use to grow bacons but it was smelly and the bacon house needed some work so they just said screw it
*they* use to grow bacons I mean
mid-western politicians are merely whores here.
I wonder who’s whorier, corn whores in IN & IA, or dairy whores in WI, or sugar beet whores in MN & ND?
I don’t think of the Wisconsonians as the objective beneficiaries of milk subsidies, though maybe I’m wrong about that. I tend more to think of dairy producers in un-dairylike places as Florida or Louisiana as the culpable ones. But like I said, I could be wrong about that.
I’m thinking we’re the winners (losers) here, Ernst. Wisco whores it up for ethanol and dairy big time with additional minimum mark-up laws for each. We even used to have a law that you couldn’t sell margarine here with the yellow color pre-mixed. Beware the butter mafia.
I haven’t researched it but I assume we also distort the cranberry, beer, and kitschy cheese hat markets.
Butter is life. Don’t be spreading lies. (on your bread)
bh and others with advanced knowledge of economics —
What do you make of the idea that QE2 is causing food prices to rise considerably in poor countries — and is partially responsible for what is happening in Egypt? See, eg., here.
The value of giving (friendly) politicians shit demonstrated:
I have a personal “burn notice” on all Republican politicians who were either in the House, Senate, or high political appointees before 1993. With my opinion that the Left treats politics as an actual war and the “filegate” episode I just consider them all to be burned and turned. But then I’m paranoid that way.
Here’s another piece on the food revolution question. h/t Corner
Yeah, I think it contributed, Jeff.
My reservation to making a stronger statement comes from the remarkable gap between items quickly increasing in price and items which aren’t moving at all. True monetary inflation should be a bit more broad based, I’d think. At the same time though, differences in demand elasticity might explain that reasonably well.
What about the cheese curd market? Eh?
Thought so.
It just gets better: EPA approves more ethanol in fuel for cars
Do you figure they’ll try for mandatory before Bumblefuck is done?
[…] Gingrich is still flapping his jaws from the other side of the shark. Cancel […]
are there any viable GOP candidates for president in 2012?
What’s up with Huntsman? Does the WH want him for 2012 or are they afraid of him? How is he, and what piece of inside the beltway nonsense is he wed do?
The higher ethanol content in fuel will help trash older cars and get them off the road. Win-win for the government and auto industry (but I repeat myself), lose for people who cannot afford to buy new cars.
Ethanol as a fuel, or even an additive to replace MBTE, is a boondoggle. Not only does it ultimately damage systems not designed a priori to utilize it, but it is generally more corrosive and attractive of moisture content, which is no good for IC engines either.
We need to end subsidies for corn; both for ethanol production and otherwise. Most of it is corporate welfare anyway. The corn market can stand alone these days quite nicely, especially given the increases in most commodity prices lately.
And the 40% of the US crop going to ethanol currently represents approximately 15% of the world’s corns supply. Seems to me like the do-gooder-gaia-loving-ethanol shills would want to see more starving people fed; but I guess that their AGW meme need support regardless of the cost-monetary or otherwise.
And Gingrich? He was dead to me long, long, ago.
The cool thing about ethanol is it has a very high octane rating.
The uncool thing is that it’s expensive (in terms of energy & other resources) to produce. Plus there’s that whole DC power-brokering thing about it that gets my back hairs up.
#39
Rust ain’t s’posed to be on inside the motor.
Oil goes on the shiny parts. Paint goes on the rest.
People keep talking about ethanol production like it’s a waste of food. I think the more important point is that the government is mandating that we BURN OUR ALCOHOL! Ten billion gallons of booze, people! Up in smoke!
Okay Squid, that’s an angle I hadn’t yet considered…
Now, I’m pissed!
I date a girl who worked for Gingrich when he was speaker and then worked in the Bush White House. She thinks Gingrich may have been replaced by aliens, given his idiocy over the past few weeks. Quote : “I’m almost embarassed to have worked for him. This isn’t the same guy.”
1. Burn food
2. ?
3. Become President!
Gingrich has to be acting as a spoiler.
#42
And they won’t let us make our own without, like, permission.
Shitheads.
I see I need to dig out my chemical engineering textbook that has an actual mathematical proof by actual chemical engineers that you lose more energy making corn ethanol than you get burning it.
I mean, how much more do people on this ethanol failboat need, it’s right there in the sc–
…oh, right, AGW.
Related:
Flying up to Seattle this last weekend I was having a discussion with my dad about mainstream science’s reluctance to adopt, endorse, or even consider viewpoints that were out of the norm. I brought up the refutations of AGW as an example while we were waiting in the Virgin Airlines boarding area, and was discussing Jack Hollander’s book (which asserts that global poverty is the biggest environmental crisis we face, rather than global affluence). Right when I got to the part where I was pointing out that Hollander’s conclusions pointed at “sharing the wealth” and lifting people out of poverty as being the best way to ameliorate the local burden on the environment, this guy behind me who majored in Angry Studies goes “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be an asshole but YOU’RE WRONG.”
And proceeded to lay out the same tired old tripe about everyone in the US having giant carbon footprints and China’s undocumented emissions not really counting because most of the Chinese population is agrarian, you know (which makes up for them getting a pass on the Kyoto Accord). He challenged me on whether I had a degree; I told him yes, I have a BSc. in biotechnology. He couldn’t believe I was trying to assert that trees make POLLUTION(!!). I told him I’d said no such thing; throughout the conversation I’d been having with my dad, I’d mentioned that trees are a major contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. (Despite his averring that OF COURSE he knew how the carbon cycle worked, he apparently had no idea that plants cycled between photosynthesis and oxidative phosphorylation–i.e., RELEASING POLLUTION–on a daily basis.) How could bringing everyone up to the US’s level possibly help global warming? THE PLANET WOULD BE DESTROYED. And what was I doing filling this nice older gentleman’s head with these– “Actually, I’m having a talk with my dad.”
…W-well, and what did he have to say about all this?
“You’re doing a good job of proving her original point, which is that people who’ve gotten themselves fixed on one idea are completely closed to anything that challenges it.”
He shut up completely after that.
I never got to ask him if he thought it was better to just leave Africa in miserable poverty, sadly. But it sure felt like he thought it was.
Corn subsidies suck. They cause harm. So do sugar subsidies. Newt has no balls left and no judgment.
Newt’s lack of judgment became apparent when he backed Dede Scozzafava in upstate New York and she turned a week or two later and endorsed the Democrat. Nice move Newt.
Gingrich doesn’t much care for Sarah Palin’s unhelpful rhetoric
Blast. I had “cotton to” in the correction pool.
I am seeing a tee shirt here.
Liquor is for drinking, not for burning!
Despite his averring that OF COURSE he knew how the carbon cycle worked, he apparently had no idea that plants cycled between photosynthesis and oxidative phosphorylation–i.e., RELEASING POLLUTION–on a daily basis.
I’ve dealt with this issue too many times, in too many discussions to keep count. It is almost shocking to discover how many ‘educated’ people do not know that all plants respire. You would think, upon being informed of their glaringly fundamental ignorance they might re-evaluate their capacity for reaching an informed conclusion, but no.
And don’t even get me started on the people who refuse to acknowledge that plants are a major source of VOCs. Many of the same don’t even understand that paint thinner was once actually made from trees.
More like “Professor Ruling Class”, purchasing farm belt votes from Iowa “Republicans” with your cash.
Of course. Because there’s no conceivable way that Mother Gaia could be contributing to this whole anthropogenic global warming/pollution phenomenon.
Just like the entire tone of an article in Science regarding a species of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that were found to be spitting out NO2 and NO3 was “oh, dear, how do we stop them from doing that? They shouldn’t be doing that!”. Because, of course, only dirty nasty human-made things create pollutants.
People who worship nature’s beauty don’t actually study nature or spend a lot of time understanding it. The thing that terrifies me about groups like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and others is that they seem to assume, completely contrary to nature, that whatever comes after humans will be better and more compassionate when there’s an equal or better chance that whatever comes after us will regard our compassion as a foolish weakness, say “screw you, biodiversity,” and scrape the world for all it’s got before heading for the stars.
heh, as a lifelong huffer, I’ll assert the best smelling stuff still is.
it just makes way more sense these days meaning the present to use coal and natural gas as feedstocks rather than corns and then we can put methanol in our cars and go vroom vroom
[…] Pandering to the greens and the ethanol fetishists must not be paying off like it once did… […]