That, and the sheer number of jobs created by an ethanol economy and the resulting ethanol infrastructure will more than make up for our tax dollars 'lost' to temporary subsidies.
That assertion seems rather questionable to me. Well in one sense it is true, the subsidies might not directly cause many people to lose jobs, but the tax money to pay for them does have a negative effect.
Ethanol is one of the few issues that almost everybody can agree on (oil companies excluded). It's good for our economy, our security, our ecology, good for farmers, good for agriculture, good for jobs, transportation industry, huge for ethanol refiners, consumers, and is eminently doable.
I'm not sure ethanol, particularly ethanol from corn, becoming a large part of our fuel supply is such an unmitigated good thing. I don't think we can devote enough land to grow ethanol to replace the majority of the gasoline we use, and producing and burning ethanol has its own environmental/ecological problems. It would certainly be good for corn farmers and ethanol refiners. But I don't think I can agree with the rest of your statement.
Ethanol could play a bigger role but I don't think it can play a dominant role. If you want to encourage the growth of ethanol use as a fuel I'd start with repealing the tariff (and any other barriers if there are any) on ethanol imports.
I'm also wary of higher subsidies even as an interim measure. Such interim or temporary measures often seem to go on forever. For example a tax on phone calls that was supposed to be a temporary measure to fund the Spanish American War was just repealed. |
