Newt, bless him, pretended that ethanol subsidies get a bad rap, and pandered like a little bitch to the Iowa crony class. Which is one of the reasons why Newt, for all his smarts and good ideas, is such a disappointment to me sometimes.
Perry, on the other hand, told it straight. And he needs to be clapped on the back for doing so. Fox:
Texas Governor Rick Perry thrashed the ethanol issue in corn country Tuesday, arguing the federal government should get out of the business of picking winners and losers and end federal subsidies to energy businesses, including the ethanol industry that looms so large in Iowa.
“[W]hether you’re in the oil and gas business, the tax credits they get, whether you’re in the ethanol business and the renewable fuel standard or whether you’re in the wind side, from Washington DC, I do not think it is the federal government’s business to be picking winners and losers in frankly any of our energy sources,” Perry said to a forum on manufacturing jobs in Pella, Iowa.
Perry brought up ethanol during a jobs forum in Pella in response to a question about whether wind energy subsidies should continue. Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad who moderated the forum noted that Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, supports federal funding for wind energy.
Ethanol advocates have expressed disagreement with Perry’s energy plan since he unveiled it in October with one group saying Perry’s rhetoric about winners and losers doesn’t match his energy plan.
“He does pick a winner,” said Monty Shaw, a spokesman for the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. “Perry’s energy plan leaves Iowa running on empty.”
Shaw notes that Perry’s plan calls for letting current subsidies for a variety of energy industries expire. And while federal subsidies for renewable fuels such as ethanol have expiration dates, Shaw says petroleum subsidies don’t have an expiration date and thus, Perry’s plan chooses the oil and gas industries as winners, while renewable fuels lose.
His campaign insists Perry would end federal energy funding entirely.
“Gov. Perry’s plan makes it clear that he will work with Congress to phase out ALL federal subsidies in order to level the playing field among all energy sectors,” a Perry spokesperson told Fox News. “These sectors will have time to adjust their model before any subsidies related to their industry expire.”
[…]
[…] despite his second-tier status in Iowa polling and the popularity of ethanol here, Perry insisted that as president, he would put the federal government out of the ethanol business, noting that it should focus on other responsibilities.
“They ought to get back to what they ought to have been doing which is standing a good military and securing the border and then let the states work out most of the rest of these things,” Perry said.
Here’s a thought: either end the subsidies or push the Iowa caucus to the end of the primary line.
Time to stop letting a bunch of corn pimps set the conditions for energy policy — acting as a referent for those pushing wind or solar or whatever other “alternative energy” platform the federal government ends up subsidizing in exchange for votes.
(h/t SDN)
Well, that is both principled, brave, and refreshing.
I could very well be wrong, but I don’t think “big oil” gets any subsidies besides the tax write-offs that every other big business gets.
But hey Ernst, there’s that kick-in-the-balls subsidy they get from the environmentalists every time they take a step in the right direction. Don’t that count?
“These sectors will have time to adjust their model before any subsidies related to their industry expire.”
I love that he says that.
You have real people – farmers and ethanol plant workers and distributors and et cetera – that “played by the rules” and made investments that were appropriate to the policy.
this seems like a good precis of the oil and gas tax milieu
You want to make right by the corn growers, ease up on the regulation of spirits. I’d love to have a home distillery.
y’all didn’t know I could speak french huh
“Drilling costs” (tangible or otherwise) aka depletion and depreciation I believe. The corn whores get those too.
“Lease costs” The owner of the local gravel quarry seeking to expand gets to write those off too, along with every coal, sand, quartz, bauxite, copper and iron (if there are any left) mining outfit in the country.
That’s the extent of my knowledge.
And just to be clear, I’m objecting to the way “subsidy” is being bandied about (kind of like settlement and agreement), not to Perry’s proposal.
#7 : We still don’t.
BREAKING….
– CNN has learned that Meghan McCain will announce her support for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in about a week and a half ago. Romney’s campaign was contacted and asked about the endorsement. His campaign manager responded in an email saying: “We certainly welcome support from any and all sources, even daughters of former losers.”
Good for him.
I do not see it revitalizing his campaign, but good for him for saying it.
Why not both?
There was an article in last month’s Mechanical Engineering magazine that kind of pimped ethanol. The comebacks included a few a comments on the fact that more energy is used to produce ethanol than you can get out of it. A lot more, ranging from 30% to 300%, depending on the process. It will never be a net gain, ever.
I agree with one commenter who stated that as a replacement for MTBE, it’s acceptable. However, as a major player in motor fuel, it’s a waste of money.
Perry has some good positions, and this is one of them.
BTW, a lot of government-subsidized industries will take a hit if the subsidies are eliminated. Those are the breaks. The smart move is to always do something that will be profitable even if the government withdraws its support. It would be even better if government were too small to pick any winners or losers.
Good for Perry and RIGHT ON JEFF! I’ve had it with whining farmers with their hands out. We pay way over the world sugar price to accommodate a few delta sugar growers, a high tariff on cleaner, sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and we’re paying the farmers to make perfectly good food into sub-par fuel and drive up the prices of all grains and anything that eats corn.
AND … a few years ago when foode prices were the highest they had been along came election season so crop price support prices were reset even higher than they already were.
Maybe Iowa shouldn’t be allowed a primary at all.
Its a shame Perry was prescient enough to roll out alot of these policies (many of which I agree with) before he shot himself in the foot multiple times in the debate. The one thing Herman Cain has helped do in this primary run is force the candidates to present actual plans, even if they are flawed, into the debate. Before the 9-9-9 thing, most of these jokers position was “We’ll have a plan, at some point, in the future”. Not good enough. If Perry started focusing on the 4-5 things he’d change (drilling, ethanol, flat/fair tax etc) and pounded those ideas over and over again, rather than be sucked into gamesmanship with the other candidates, he might be able to revitalize his campaign.
Crap, that should have been “wasn’t prescient enough”. My bad.
You want to make right by the corn growers, ease up on the regulation of spirits. I’d love to have a home distillery.
Thought about that myself. I looked into it some time ago and it’s easy enough to do, Ernst. You can get a still like the one on the left for like $500, or a simpler one for a couple hundred bucks. The former are pretty much what these guys use. I’m sure it’s a bureaucratic nightmare to do something commercially, but who the hell is gonna know or even care that you have a small still in the house for your own personal use? You can learn a lot in this forum as well.
Actually, Matt, Perry’s been rolling out these plans all along here in TX. Getting the coverage has been a little harder. Especially in debates run by the LSM.
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2011/11/the-cain-humiliation-conservatives-arent-ready-to-ascend.html
Dan considers Cain and the conservative movement a clown act…
He will give Perry a shot and barring that will hold his nose and go Romney.
This is depressing, but not for the reasons Riehl states.
One hopes.
What Monty Shaw is is unprincipled not just to the point he’ll pander for a living with the cheapest fifth-grade sound-bitable rhetoric, but that he’ll lend his voice and efforts to the willful milking of DC — in other words, his damn national peers — in order to protect an unnatural fiscal construct in Iowa.
No respect, Monty. Not for progressivist theft and even less for those who make their living enabling it.
/stating the obvious
Iowa should be able to run on ethanol, no?
Pablo, only if we pay for it for those Iowans.
Federal graft is our most precious natural resource, Pablo.
It is good to be first in the primary process. You get to pick the tastiest morsels out of the goverment gruel.
And good even when the tasty morsels turn out to be laced with botulin?
I still don’t understand why the government extracts taxes and duties in excess of 20% for ethanol I put in my mouth, while simultaneously subsidizing by even greater amounts the ethanol I put in my car. What gives, people?
And again:
Done. He’s the only candidate (and yes, I’m looking at you, Ron Paul, supposed fan of smaller government) who’s just coming flat out and saying it.
As Abraham Lincoln said when asked how he could support a drunken bum for top general: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”