Growls

In a well-researched policy paper about the subsidies enjoyed by ethanol, Jeff Dircksen of the National Taxpayers Union writes that it’s a “bumper crop for agribusiness,” but a “bitter harvest for taxpayers.”

Dircksen first provides a bit of history, writing:

“In 1973, Richard Nixon announced that the United States would be energy independent by 1980. Over the next three decades, a number of programs and initiatives would be launched in pursuit of that goal and then quietly eliminated when they failed to succeed. One program, ethanol, has been able to weather the changing political climate by cultivating political and popular support. Unfortunately for taxpayers, ethanol is another in a series of highly-subsidized but ineffective energy programs that are costly for consumers and are a bad "investment" of tax dollars.”

In his conclusion, he writes:

“Ethanol's supporters have dutifully nurtured their industry and stalked the halls of government, securing billions in taxpayer subsidies. The industry claims that consumers choose ethanol because it's good for farmers or because it's good for the environment. Yet, after nearly 30 years of government help and protection, the industry is still not able to meet the test of the marketplace. As politicians look to add farm crops from their states to the list of subsidized sources of ethanol, taxpayers can expect to "invest" more and more in this disappointing technology.”

As President Ronald Reagan might have explained it, “Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.”