Kill the Corn Ethanol Boondoggle

Corn-belt states like Iowa and Nebraska and agribusiness giants like Archer-Daniels-Midland love ethanol. They make billions from it. Much of that money comes directly from taxpayers in the form of subsidies.

All that cash might be worth it if ethanol actually did something significant to solve global warming or end our reliance on foreign oil. But it does neither. Even if every acre of corn grown in America went to make ethanol, it would only fill a small fraction of our oil needs. And it takes so much energy to produce a gallon of corn-based fuel that it barely decreases greenhouse gas emissions.

Even worse, because of the massive subsidies being handed out from Washington, more and more corn growers are switching their crops to ethanol production. That means the price of food, which is already going up because of inflation, is soaring. So not only is it ineffective at the pump and environmentally negligible, ethanol is making a trip to the grocery store cost an arm and leg.

Corn-based gas is the perfect example of big government and big business running a scam on the rest of us. It’s a false solution that transfers huge amounts of cash from the public treasury to corporate bank accounts. We simply need to quit while we’re behind and stop throwing good money after bad.

NEXT: A Truly Free Energy Market