Dr. Steven J. Allen's article on the green energy deception called The Great Green Fleet, Chicken Fat, and Hillary Rodham is a good read. You will learn that the Protecting Americans From Tax Hikes Act of 2015 hides green energy special treatment in plain view. The name of every law produced in Washington is designed to hide a plethora of harmful actions in the bill. The green energy industries are almost entirely predicated on special interest legislation at the federal and state government levels, whether it be subsidies, mandates, or tax advantages. Very little of the green energy industry can stand on its own two feet. Or is it its own hundred feet like the nasty insect it is?
Showing posts with label subsidy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label subsidy. Show all posts
10 January 2015
Congress Calls Itself Small Employer Under ObamaCare Law
The individual state and DC health insurance exchanges under the ObamaCare law allow small businesses with fewer than 50 "full-time" employees to purchase insurance for their employees on the exchanges. The U.S. Congress purchases its health insurance under the DC health insurance exchange, which under the District of Columbia law setting it up has the ObamaCare law required limit on institutional entities that may use it of fewer than 50 full-time employees. Under ObamaCare law, a full time employee is anyone working 30 or more hours a week.
According to the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, at least 12,359 employees or dependents of employees of Congress are receiving their health insurance plans from the DC Exchange. Because they are receiving their benefits from the DC exchange, many are receiving the federal subsidies offered on state exchanges. The House of Representatives attested under penalty of law that it had 45 employees. The Senate made the same statement that it had 45 employees. This was revealed by Judicial Watch when it obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The DC government has acknowledged that their purchases of insurance on the exchange are a breech of DC law, but has yet to do anything about it.
When the House of Representatives attested that it had 45 employees, it was under Republican control. When the Senate made the same statement, it was under Democrat control. Both parties engaged in patently illegal activity for the monetary gain of the 437 members of the House, the 100 Senators, and their thousands of staff employees.
These are the same reprobates who controlled the acquisition of $3.0 trillion of federal revenue in 2014, spending of $3.5 trillion, and the imposition of another $1.5 trillion in regulatory costs on the private sector in 2014. It is insane to allow such lawbreakers and avaricious, unprincipled thieves have control of so much of the wealth produced by the hardworking taxpayers of the private sector.
They get away with this using the specious argument that they are correcting injustices of the private sector. In fact, such injustices as there are in the private sector are mostly avoidable simply because individuals are free there to associate or not with others based on their own judgment of the fairness of their interactions. None of us are allowed to disassociate ourselves from the government and its employees who very determinedly mistreat those of us in the private sector. We are forced, yes forced, to submit to their myriad, complex, ubiquitous predations. Congress and government bureaucrats spend every working hour studying and implementing ways to use their nearly unbridled power over us to their advantage and our subjugation.
The only answer to this predation is for the People to insist on the most principled and strict application of the Constitution to severely limit the actions of Congress and the federal government generally. The size and scope of this out-of-control Big Government monster must be slashed until it performs only its legitimate role of protecting the equal, sovereign rights of the individual.
According to the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, at least 12,359 employees or dependents of employees of Congress are receiving their health insurance plans from the DC Exchange. Because they are receiving their benefits from the DC exchange, many are receiving the federal subsidies offered on state exchanges. The House of Representatives attested under penalty of law that it had 45 employees. The Senate made the same statement that it had 45 employees. This was revealed by Judicial Watch when it obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The DC government has acknowledged that their purchases of insurance on the exchange are a breech of DC law, but has yet to do anything about it.
When the House of Representatives attested that it had 45 employees, it was under Republican control. When the Senate made the same statement, it was under Democrat control. Both parties engaged in patently illegal activity for the monetary gain of the 437 members of the House, the 100 Senators, and their thousands of staff employees.
These are the same reprobates who controlled the acquisition of $3.0 trillion of federal revenue in 2014, spending of $3.5 trillion, and the imposition of another $1.5 trillion in regulatory costs on the private sector in 2014. It is insane to allow such lawbreakers and avaricious, unprincipled thieves have control of so much of the wealth produced by the hardworking taxpayers of the private sector.
They get away with this using the specious argument that they are correcting injustices of the private sector. In fact, such injustices as there are in the private sector are mostly avoidable simply because individuals are free there to associate or not with others based on their own judgment of the fairness of their interactions. None of us are allowed to disassociate ourselves from the government and its employees who very determinedly mistreat those of us in the private sector. We are forced, yes forced, to submit to their myriad, complex, ubiquitous predations. Congress and government bureaucrats spend every working hour studying and implementing ways to use their nearly unbridled power over us to their advantage and our subjugation.
The only answer to this predation is for the People to insist on the most principled and strict application of the Constitution to severely limit the actions of Congress and the federal government generally. The size and scope of this out-of-control Big Government monster must be slashed until it performs only its legitimate role of protecting the equal, sovereign rights of the individual.
29 July 2014
ObamaCare's False Boast: It has significantly lowered the number of uninsured
It has become common to see supporters of ObamaCare, artfully and deceitfully called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, claim that it has decreased the numbers of the uninsured from the 17.4% of Americans in 2010 when it was signed into law to the present 13.4%.
Of course the main factor affecting the percentage with health insurance is affordability. It happens that in 2012 real dollars, 2010 was the minimum in household income for the upper limit of the lowest, the next lowest, and the middle quintiles of household income due to the Great Socialist Recession. Even the fourth and next to the highest quintile upper limit was almost as low in that year in its worst year of 2009. So of course one of the ways households hard-pressed due to the loss of income due to the Great Socialist Recession got by was by dropping their health insurance, especially assuming everyone in the household was in good health.
It makes more sense to compare the percentage of uninsured under ObamaCare now to the number before the Great Socialist Recession had its great depressing effect on household income. In 2008, only 14.4% of Americans were uninsured for medical care. That year was the maximum income year for all four lowest quintiles before the Great Socialist Recession depressed earnings, with the exception of the second quintile whose upper limit income maximized in 2007, but at a figure only $100 greater than that of 2008. So, the great success of ObamaCare is really a 1.0% drop in the percentage of uninsured, not the 3.0% claimed by some of its advocates.
The proponents of ObamaCare want us to assume that all of that 1% is due to poor Americans obtaining insurance coverage either through Medicaid or as a result of federal government subsidy for their medical insurance coverage. The fact that studies have shown no health advantage in being covered by Medicaid is unacknowledged by ObamaCare supporters. The fact that more than half of the government subsidies are based on an IRS ruling that clearly violates the ObamaCare law and has been judged such by the DC Federal Court of Appeals is also ignored.
Another factor is ignored as well. Many American households are wealthy enough to have been self-insured. Few people understand how many are so wealthy and few people recognize that their decision to be self-insured was often a rational one, especially if members of the household were of generally good health. Since good health is a useful attribute in achieving high incomes and in accumulating wealth, it is likely that the wealthier Americans are also commonly the healthier Americans. Yet, the tax penalties of ObamaCare will have forced many such wealthy households to stop being self-insured, which is registered as uninsured. Many such households had to purchase ObamaCare mandated medical insurance. The movement of these wealthy households to being insured, is a part of the mere 1% decrease in the number of Americans uninsured.
So, how many American households might reasonably have been uninsured before the onset of ObamaCare? In 2012, the top 5% of household income earnings exceeded $191,156 a year. With such an income, one can easily afford the doctor's bills a relatively healthy family might incur. But there is more. In 2012, the total net household wealth was $80.66 trillion. This is an average of about $659,000 per household. Of course the median household wealth was much lower at about $120,000, actually a 2011 figure.
I do not have the wealth distribution figures for 2012, but those for 2007 are available. Assuming about the same percentages of wealth in the wealthiest 1% and then the next wealthiest 4%, the average wealth for these groups of households in 2012 is:
Wealthiest 1%, $22,790,000 per household.
Next Wealthiest 4%, $4,495,000 per household.
So, any of these wealthiest 5% of households might well have chosen to be uninsured prior to ObamaCare. Now, they are most likely better off being insured. So it is clear that there is great potential for all of the 1% decrease in the uninsured since 2008 being people from the wealthiest and highest income households.
This may not be case, but until there is a complete and validated breakdown of the health care insured by income and wealth, we should not assume that the 1% decrease in the uninsured is the result of poor and maybe middle income people rushing into ObamaCare. In addition, with the assurance of health insurance under ObamaCare for those with severe health problems, some wealthy and high income people are undoubtedly also saving money by putting unhealthy family members under ObamaCare's lower age-pooled rates.
Given the very small decrease of 1% in the uninsured since 2008 and the claims that large numbers of people have been signed up on Medicaid, it is clear that many of the people who had insurance in 2008 do not have it now. This suggests strongly that a larger fraction of the middle income groups do not have health insurance now than did in 2008. This is an expected effect of the large increase in the cost of insurance premiums brought on by ObamaCare for those who qualify for little or no subsidy. It is also an expected result given the decrease in full-time employment since then due to this never-ending Great Socialist Recession.
Of course the main factor affecting the percentage with health insurance is affordability. It happens that in 2012 real dollars, 2010 was the minimum in household income for the upper limit of the lowest, the next lowest, and the middle quintiles of household income due to the Great Socialist Recession. Even the fourth and next to the highest quintile upper limit was almost as low in that year in its worst year of 2009. So of course one of the ways households hard-pressed due to the loss of income due to the Great Socialist Recession got by was by dropping their health insurance, especially assuming everyone in the household was in good health.
It makes more sense to compare the percentage of uninsured under ObamaCare now to the number before the Great Socialist Recession had its great depressing effect on household income. In 2008, only 14.4% of Americans were uninsured for medical care. That year was the maximum income year for all four lowest quintiles before the Great Socialist Recession depressed earnings, with the exception of the second quintile whose upper limit income maximized in 2007, but at a figure only $100 greater than that of 2008. So, the great success of ObamaCare is really a 1.0% drop in the percentage of uninsured, not the 3.0% claimed by some of its advocates.
The proponents of ObamaCare want us to assume that all of that 1% is due to poor Americans obtaining insurance coverage either through Medicaid or as a result of federal government subsidy for their medical insurance coverage. The fact that studies have shown no health advantage in being covered by Medicaid is unacknowledged by ObamaCare supporters. The fact that more than half of the government subsidies are based on an IRS ruling that clearly violates the ObamaCare law and has been judged such by the DC Federal Court of Appeals is also ignored.
Another factor is ignored as well. Many American households are wealthy enough to have been self-insured. Few people understand how many are so wealthy and few people recognize that their decision to be self-insured was often a rational one, especially if members of the household were of generally good health. Since good health is a useful attribute in achieving high incomes and in accumulating wealth, it is likely that the wealthier Americans are also commonly the healthier Americans. Yet, the tax penalties of ObamaCare will have forced many such wealthy households to stop being self-insured, which is registered as uninsured. Many such households had to purchase ObamaCare mandated medical insurance. The movement of these wealthy households to being insured, is a part of the mere 1% decrease in the number of Americans uninsured.
So, how many American households might reasonably have been uninsured before the onset of ObamaCare? In 2012, the top 5% of household income earnings exceeded $191,156 a year. With such an income, one can easily afford the doctor's bills a relatively healthy family might incur. But there is more. In 2012, the total net household wealth was $80.66 trillion. This is an average of about $659,000 per household. Of course the median household wealth was much lower at about $120,000, actually a 2011 figure.
I do not have the wealth distribution figures for 2012, but those for 2007 are available. Assuming about the same percentages of wealth in the wealthiest 1% and then the next wealthiest 4%, the average wealth for these groups of households in 2012 is:
Wealthiest 1%, $22,790,000 per household.
Next Wealthiest 4%, $4,495,000 per household.
So, any of these wealthiest 5% of households might well have chosen to be uninsured prior to ObamaCare. Now, they are most likely better off being insured. So it is clear that there is great potential for all of the 1% decrease in the uninsured since 2008 being people from the wealthiest and highest income households.
This may not be case, but until there is a complete and validated breakdown of the health care insured by income and wealth, we should not assume that the 1% decrease in the uninsured is the result of poor and maybe middle income people rushing into ObamaCare. In addition, with the assurance of health insurance under ObamaCare for those with severe health problems, some wealthy and high income people are undoubtedly also saving money by putting unhealthy family members under ObamaCare's lower age-pooled rates.
Given the very small decrease of 1% in the uninsured since 2008 and the claims that large numbers of people have been signed up on Medicaid, it is clear that many of the people who had insurance in 2008 do not have it now. This suggests strongly that a larger fraction of the middle income groups do not have health insurance now than did in 2008. This is an expected effect of the large increase in the cost of insurance premiums brought on by ObamaCare for those who qualify for little or no subsidy. It is also an expected result given the decrease in full-time employment since then due to this never-ending Great Socialist Recession.
11 August 2013
Americans On Medical Care Subsidies Under ObamaCare
It is important to know how many Americans will be receiving government subsidies for medical care once ObamaCare takes effect in a few months. I was looking at a article by Robert Romano, the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government. His article is Why Obamacare always was a public option. Unfortunately, I found upon examining this article more closely, that his numbers do not add up. The outcome is worse than his totals imply. [See Robert Romano's comment below. He has set me straight on the errors I will correct in brackets below.]
Unemployed and Given Up on Finding Employment = 22 million
Pregnant Women, Disabled, and Nursing Home People on Medicaid now = 27 million
Children on Medicaid now = 31 million
Medicare Enrolled = 49 million
Workers making $45,960 or less, new under ObamaCare = 113 million [counts those adults already enrolled on Medicaid and Would-be Workers who are Unemployed]
Total Number of Medical-Expense Subsidized Americans = 242 million [- 22 - 27 million = 193 million, as Robert Romano wrote]
To be sure, there may be some people in more than one of these categories. A few people who are unemployed may already be on Medicaid. People in nursing homes may be enrolled in Medicare. The total is probably a bit lower than 242 [193] million then. However, some of the unemployed not on Medicaid have children and they will be in families receiving subsidies and therefor benefiting. The U.S. population now is 316 million.
242/316 = 0.766 [193/316 = 0.611],
so it appears that [three-fifths] of Americans will be getting subsidized medical care!
How is the remaining two-fifths of Americans supposed to sustain this burden? Should we not expect that many of them will be drawn under as the costs are put on their backs more and more? This burden will actually increase the number of poor in America and hence those eligible for subsidies.
While getting subsidized medical care, many college graduates over 26 years old with jobs will soon not only be paying their unforgivable student loans, but will also be paying a fortune for health insurance at costs to provide for the very sick and older people or fined a minimum of $695 a year for not having expensive government-approved health insurance. Those without jobs will also be fined $675 a year for not having insurance, which means almost all of such unemployed people will have to apply for the government subsidies. Your life will be hard, but if you voted for Obama, it will be a just consequence. Life is commonly hard on the irrational. The exception is the irrational members of Congress who voted for ObamaCare or who have failed to defund it and who are being allowed to escape its draconian provisions in a most unlawful manner.
Unemployed and Given Up on Finding Employment = 22 million
Pregnant Women, Disabled, and Nursing Home People on Medicaid now = 27 million
Children on Medicaid now = 31 million
Medicare Enrolled = 49 million
Workers making $45,960 or less, new under ObamaCare = 113 million [counts those adults already enrolled on Medicaid and Would-be Workers who are Unemployed]
Total Number of Medical-Expense Subsidized Americans = 242 million [- 22 - 27 million = 193 million, as Robert Romano wrote]
To be sure, there may be some people in more than one of these categories. A few people who are unemployed may already be on Medicaid. People in nursing homes may be enrolled in Medicare. The total is probably a bit lower than 242 [193] million then. However, some of the unemployed not on Medicaid have children and they will be in families receiving subsidies and therefor benefiting. The U.S. population now is 316 million.
242/316 = 0.766 [193/316 = 0.611],
so it appears that [three-fifths] of Americans will be getting subsidized medical care!
How is the remaining two-fifths of Americans supposed to sustain this burden? Should we not expect that many of them will be drawn under as the costs are put on their backs more and more? This burden will actually increase the number of poor in America and hence those eligible for subsidies.
While getting subsidized medical care, many college graduates over 26 years old with jobs will soon not only be paying their unforgivable student loans, but will also be paying a fortune for health insurance at costs to provide for the very sick and older people or fined a minimum of $695 a year for not having expensive government-approved health insurance. Those without jobs will also be fined $675 a year for not having insurance, which means almost all of such unemployed people will have to apply for the government subsidies. Your life will be hard, but if you voted for Obama, it will be a just consequence. Life is commonly hard on the irrational. The exception is the irrational members of Congress who voted for ObamaCare or who have failed to defund it and who are being allowed to escape its draconian provisions in a most unlawful manner.
05 August 2009
Mandated Employer-Provided Health Insurance Discrimination
One of the provisions of the mandated employer-provided health insurance plans being considered by the Democrat Congress that I have been wondering about for some time pertains to the issue of how that mandate would treat individual versus family coverage requirements. My company pays 100% of the cost of the individual plan for everyone, but pays no more for family plans. For whatever reason, we historically have had few employees who needed family coverage and it did not seem fair to discriminate in their favor by providing them with benefits much higher than those for employees who either did not require coverage due to having a spouse covering that or who only needed individual coverage.
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says that employers must offer "qualified" individual and family coverage. They must also make a premium contribution of at least 72.5% for individual coverage and 65% for family coverage.
What does this mean in terms of compensation for the employee without the need to insure a family? In 2007, the average individual coverage plan cost was $4,708 a year. The average family plan coverage cost was $12,680 per year. 72.5% of $4,708 is $3,413.30, while 65% of $12,680 is $8242.00. The employee with a need for family coverage must be given $4,828.70 per year more than the employee without a need for family coverage.
Now, I love families, but not everyone has a family. Sometimes this is by choice and sometimes it is more a matter of misfortune. But whatever the cause, it is not necessarily the case that an employee with a family is worth more to a business than one without a family. This being the case, what business is it of the government to require a business to treat an employee with a family as though they are more valuable to the business? Nonetheless, the government is going to require that small businesses subsidize families.
This government mandate invites additional discrimination against hiring people with families or who might be likely to soon have a family. No doubt, the government will have anti-family discrimination laws on the books and police to visit small businesses to see if they have the expected ratio of employees with families to those without families.
Note also that whether the increased business expense is that of an individual plan or a family plan, the fixed price addition compared to pay is larger for lower paid employees. There will be an increased rate of job loss for low-paid employees. Companies will have a greater incentive to replace lower paid employees with machines and technology, or to outsource their jobs to India and China. This effect will be large for lower paid employees covered by individual plans, but it will be much larger for those covered by family plans. So, discrimination against lower paid employees will be particularly great for those with families.
The plan my company has has provisions for single coverage, for coverage of only a spouse, for coverage of a parent and one child, and for coverage of a family. Thus, there are two offerings of intermediate expense which employees can choose. Will the government be forcing anyone with the need to cover only one additional person, a spouse or a child, to buy a much more expensive family plan? If so, then both such an individual and his employer will be required to subsidize families with multiple children or with a husband and wife and a child. Is this fair?
Remember the old welfare policies such as Aid for Dependent-Mothers that caused many poor women to chase husbands away and raise children as single parents on welfare? Well, this mandated health insurance plan requirement that family plan premiums must be subsidized by small businesses may have something of a similar effect, except that employees will be in the position of fearing to have families at all since it might result in them losing their jobs!
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says that employers must offer "qualified" individual and family coverage. They must also make a premium contribution of at least 72.5% for individual coverage and 65% for family coverage.
What does this mean in terms of compensation for the employee without the need to insure a family? In 2007, the average individual coverage plan cost was $4,708 a year. The average family plan coverage cost was $12,680 per year. 72.5% of $4,708 is $3,413.30, while 65% of $12,680 is $8242.00. The employee with a need for family coverage must be given $4,828.70 per year more than the employee without a need for family coverage.
Now, I love families, but not everyone has a family. Sometimes this is by choice and sometimes it is more a matter of misfortune. But whatever the cause, it is not necessarily the case that an employee with a family is worth more to a business than one without a family. This being the case, what business is it of the government to require a business to treat an employee with a family as though they are more valuable to the business? Nonetheless, the government is going to require that small businesses subsidize families.
This government mandate invites additional discrimination against hiring people with families or who might be likely to soon have a family. No doubt, the government will have anti-family discrimination laws on the books and police to visit small businesses to see if they have the expected ratio of employees with families to those without families.
Note also that whether the increased business expense is that of an individual plan or a family plan, the fixed price addition compared to pay is larger for lower paid employees. There will be an increased rate of job loss for low-paid employees. Companies will have a greater incentive to replace lower paid employees with machines and technology, or to outsource their jobs to India and China. This effect will be large for lower paid employees covered by individual plans, but it will be much larger for those covered by family plans. So, discrimination against lower paid employees will be particularly great for those with families.
The plan my company has has provisions for single coverage, for coverage of only a spouse, for coverage of a parent and one child, and for coverage of a family. Thus, there are two offerings of intermediate expense which employees can choose. Will the government be forcing anyone with the need to cover only one additional person, a spouse or a child, to buy a much more expensive family plan? If so, then both such an individual and his employer will be required to subsidize families with multiple children or with a husband and wife and a child. Is this fair?
Remember the old welfare policies such as Aid for Dependent-Mothers that caused many poor women to chase husbands away and raise children as single parents on welfare? Well, this mandated health insurance plan requirement that family plan premiums must be subsidized by small businesses may have something of a similar effect, except that employees will be in the position of fearing to have families at all since it might result in them losing their jobs!
03 December 2008
A Fuel-Producing Fungus
While I am very much inclined to think that we will remain very dependent upon fossil fuels for the next several decades, I have nothing at all against the development of alternative sources of energy, provided they are not heavily subsidized by government. OK, I used the word "heavily", since I might allow a short-term light subsidy if one could be quite sure that the new energy source would significantly decrease our energy dependence. So far no candidate alternative energy source seems to have arisen to meet that criterion. This is based purely on considerations of defense policy.
The topic here is that it has been discovered by Gary Strobel and colleagues of Montana State University that a fungus which grows in the Ulmo tree of the Patagonian rainforest of South America produces a brew of hydrocarbons similar to diesel fuel. This may make it possible to use the fungus, G. roseum, to make fuel from biomass consisting of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin directly. Presently, enzymes called cellulases are used to convert cellulose to sugar, which is then fermented by microbes into ethanol.
Of course, even if the fungus does prove economically effective in converting the 400 million tons of plant stalk waste per year into fuel, this is a fuel which will fuel the Global Warming Holocaust Believers fears. It will burn to produce carbon dioxide, just as we produce carbon dioxide from the fuel we burn in our bodies and just as fossil fuel combustion does also. It appears we will never be able to use it after all!
The topic here is that it has been discovered by Gary Strobel and colleagues of Montana State University that a fungus which grows in the Ulmo tree of the Patagonian rainforest of South America produces a brew of hydrocarbons similar to diesel fuel. This may make it possible to use the fungus, G. roseum, to make fuel from biomass consisting of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin directly. Presently, enzymes called cellulases are used to convert cellulose to sugar, which is then fermented by microbes into ethanol.
Of course, even if the fungus does prove economically effective in converting the 400 million tons of plant stalk waste per year into fuel, this is a fuel which will fuel the Global Warming Holocaust Believers fears. It will burn to produce carbon dioxide, just as we produce carbon dioxide from the fuel we burn in our bodies and just as fossil fuel combustion does also. It appears we will never be able to use it after all!
05 May 2008
Congress Backpeddling on Ethanol
It seems clear now that both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress are largely coming to the conclusion that they made a big mistake in backing ethanol mandates, subsidies, and exclusionary tariffs. Some aspects of the magnitude of their mistake have only relatively recently become clear such as the fact that there is probably no net energy achieved with the use of farmed plants to create ethanol, with the possible exception of sugar cane grown in some very favorable areas. Another example of recent knowledge is that ethanol use does not likely reduce net pollution when all factors are accounted for. On the other hand, the idea that one-quarter of all corn could be used to create ethanol and that this would not greatly increase the cost of corn, those end products dependent upon corn such as beef, pork, chicken, corn oil, and corn syrup, and of soybeans and wheat as corn was planted in their stead, was ludicrous. This year, 35% of the corn crop may be going to ethanol production.
President Bush is still saying that the ethanol mandates are not barely responsible for the food cost increases. He is disappointingly slow on coming around on this. It is true that corn and other food prices are going up both because of the reduction of supply due to the ethanol mandates and due to a major increase in world-wide demand for better and more food.
Congress has pleasantly surprised me by starting to change course so soon. House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, Democrat, is not as nimble-minded as he should be, but he is now advocating that the upcoming farm bill, delayed from last year, should reduce the ethanol subsidy. They would also increase the subsidy for cellulosic ethanol. He has said, "Obviously, sometimes there are unforseen or unintended consequences of actions." Imagine a committed socialist allowing that he is not omnipotent! Even that he may have been wrong-headed!
Republicans in Congress actually want now to remove mandates requiring the blending of ethanol with gasoline. Representative Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, introduced a bill to end all federal ethanol supports, including the requirement to blend it with gas, the tax credits for ethanol refiners, and the tariffs to prevent the importation of sugar cane produced ethanol, primarily from Brazil. He recognizes that our economy does not need big increases in food prices on top of those for energy, such as oil. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican, wants to freeze the ethanol mandate for gasoline at this year's level. On Rush Limmbaugh's program, she noted that cattle and pig producers were being hurt badly. Apparently there are a few of them in Texas! Rick Perry, Texas governor, has asked the EPA to allow Texas to use only half as much ethanol in gasoline blends as is required.
Meanwhile, some farmers are asking Congress to put windfall taxes on oil producing companies, claiming that these companies are responsible for driving up their costs. The National Corn Growers Association made the foolish claim that the use of biofuels with gasoline was saving Americans $69 billion a year. Others such as Hillary Clinton are also demagogically calling for windfall profit taxes on the oil companies.
President Bush is still saying that the ethanol mandates are not barely responsible for the food cost increases. He is disappointingly slow on coming around on this. It is true that corn and other food prices are going up both because of the reduction of supply due to the ethanol mandates and due to a major increase in world-wide demand for better and more food.
Congress has pleasantly surprised me by starting to change course so soon. House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, Democrat, is not as nimble-minded as he should be, but he is now advocating that the upcoming farm bill, delayed from last year, should reduce the ethanol subsidy. They would also increase the subsidy for cellulosic ethanol. He has said, "Obviously, sometimes there are unforseen or unintended consequences of actions." Imagine a committed socialist allowing that he is not omnipotent! Even that he may have been wrong-headed!
Republicans in Congress actually want now to remove mandates requiring the blending of ethanol with gasoline. Representative Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, introduced a bill to end all federal ethanol supports, including the requirement to blend it with gas, the tax credits for ethanol refiners, and the tariffs to prevent the importation of sugar cane produced ethanol, primarily from Brazil. He recognizes that our economy does not need big increases in food prices on top of those for energy, such as oil. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican, wants to freeze the ethanol mandate for gasoline at this year's level. On Rush Limmbaugh's program, she noted that cattle and pig producers were being hurt badly. Apparently there are a few of them in Texas! Rick Perry, Texas governor, has asked the EPA to allow Texas to use only half as much ethanol in gasoline blends as is required.
Meanwhile, some farmers are asking Congress to put windfall taxes on oil producing companies, claiming that these companies are responsible for driving up their costs. The National Corn Growers Association made the foolish claim that the use of biofuels with gasoline was saving Americans $69 billion a year. Others such as Hillary Clinton are also demagogically calling for windfall profit taxes on the oil companies.
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