Ethanol: The Government's Choice

We've heard a lot about ethanol. It was the only real "solution" to climate change and the energy crisis President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union address this past January. Why? Well, it is a political "slam dunk." It is a fuel that we can more-or-less easily substitute for gasoline in current automobiles, and the red states produce it. The problem is that we aren't really serious about letting the market determine if it is economically feasible. An article at Business and Media Institute points out that we have subsidized corn production to the tune of $51 Billion since 1995 and there is still that pesky tariff of $.54 per gallon on imported ethanol.