(via Mike Munger) Congress has mandated that people use a certain amount of ethanol—that way, Archer Daniels Midland can make good on all of the money they’ve dumped into political campaigns. It now appears that this will be impossible. If Congress changes laws and mandates that higher percentages of ethanol be added to fuel, it could damage cars. If they don’t change things, there will be billions of gallons of ethanol mandated for sale but never, you know, sold.
So, what have we learned from ethanol? That government sucks. Let us count the ways…
- Spending large amounts of taxpayer money developing an inefficient energy source.
- Using federal regulation to force people to pay for this crap fuel.
- Forcing people to buy a certain amount of goods, or else. [As an aside, Pat and I watched an episode of the Untouchables tonight which tied into this sort of thing.]
- Raising the price of corn tremendously, thereby harming poor individuals by raising the price of food.
Seriously, it’s like they never heard of the law of unintended consequences. Unfortunately, these politicians will never actually pay for it.
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