Friday, November 25, 2011

EDITORIAL: Burning food

When the Pilgrims gathered for the first Thanksgiving, corn took a prominent place alongside the many meat and fish dishes served. Nearly 400 years later, the holiday menu has changed, but corn is still found on most tables. That’s because corn has been and remains a major food source throughout much of the world. Yet for some reason in the United States, politicians each year would rather gather 40 percent of this valuable crop and burn it on a $6 billion pile of in taxpayer cash. Powerful agribusiness interests collect a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit to convert this food crop into ethanol, an unnecessary and sometimes harmful additive to gasoline. Another 54-cent-per-gallon tariff is imposed to keep Brazil’s sugar-cane-based ethanol from entering our shores. Nor does the folly end there. The Food and Energy Security Act of 2007 mandates a massive increase in the production of ethanol by 2022 even though there is no demand. All of this carries a significant economic cost...more

The editorial concludes:

The subsidy is set to expire at year’s end. This Congress has earned a reputation for doing nothing. This is one area where that might be an advantage. All Congress has to do to end this mess is do nothing and let the subsidy expire.

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