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Barack Obama’s only legislative accomplishment in the Senate so far is the passage of “the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate”
which was designed to “to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days
of setting the agenda in Washington are over.” Well the lobbyists
didn’t get the message. Since the liberals took over Congress profits for the top lobbying firms in Washington have soared. The reason is simple:
liberals want to increase government control over the economy through
mandates and regulation to achieve their social engineering goals. This
market intervention inevitably ends up picking winners and losers in
the marketplace and firms, therefore, have a very strong incentive to
spend money in Washington to make sure they aren’t crushed by Congress.
The fight over ethanol mandates is a perfect case in point.
Supported by an alliance of environmentalists and corn growers, the use
of biofuels in motor fuels were first mandated in 2005. Then in 2007,
the Energy Independence and Security Act more than doubled the amount of biofuel mandated for 2008 and more than tripled it for 2015.
These mandates have diverted 25% of the U.S. corn crop from food to
fuel in 2007 and will divert almost 35% in 2008. Since the Renewable
Fuel Standard (RFS) was enforced, the price of a bushel of corn has
risen from $2.06 a bushel to $4.00 a bushel.
These rising food prices are exacerbating the world wide hunger crisis
and negatively impacting the economy here at home. Texas Gov. Rick
Perry writes in his letter asking the Environmental Protection Agency
for a waiver from the RFS: “The difference of $1.94/bushel equates to a
negative impact on the Texas economy of $1.17 billion since the RFS has
come about. And now, with the implementation of the new RFS, some
estimates peg corn prices at $8.00/bushel for the 2008 crop, which
would result in a negative impact to Texas of $3.59 billion.”
Not everybody is hurt buy these higher corn prices though. The
mandate works as a transfer of wealth from American consumers to the
nation’s corn farmers, who love the mandates. That is why the American Farm Bureau has attacked Gov. Perry’s waiver request and it is why Obama, again this Sunday on Meet the Press, defended the Illinois corn growers’ ethanol business.
But ethanol mandates are just an appetizer of the for a much larger
big business feast should a liberal Congress be paired with a liberal
White House. There is a reason major corporations like General Electric
extend Earth Day into an Earth Week scare fest. GE
already spends more than $20 million lobbying the federal government
and a global warming cap-and-trade system, properly written to GE’s
advantage, could score the company billions in profits from subsidies
and mandates for their alternative energy businesses. By co-opting
the environmental movement, savvy businesses like GE can end up as huge
winners while the American consumer loses with sky high energy prices.
Fortunately Americans are beginning to catch on to this game. A Rasmussen Reports survey
shows that 54% of American adults believe that the push for alternative
energy sources is driving up food prices. Tired environmentalist
arguments against new oil exploration are becoming punchlines. And even Obama is admitting that nuclear power should be part of the policy fix for high energy prices. Source
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