Jim DeMint

Two GOP Senators Say Get Rid of Ethanol Subsidies; Gore Says His Support for Ethanol Subsidies a Mistake

by Fran Smith on November 23, 2010

in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming

In the Washington Post’s “Plum Line” column today Greg Sargent focuses on two GOP senators’ campaign to get rid of the ethanol subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year. It’s likely that the issue will be a divisive one on the Republican side, because some strong supporters of ethanol subsidies want to extend the 45-cent-a-gallon tax credit for blenders of ethanol and the tariff on ethanol imports.

Influential Republican Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are arguing that a clear message in the recent elections was that Americans want to reduce government spending, and the ethanol programs should be on the cutting block.

A surprise new opponent of ethanol subsidies from the other Party is former Vice President Al Gore, who was quoted as saying: “It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol.” Gore noted that ethanol as a fuel has a small energy conversion ratio. He also explained his earlier support for ethanol subsidies as a product of his political ambition to become president:

“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Many environmental and food aid groups – some of which had originally supported corn-based ethanol production - turned against this technology because of the diversion of corn crops from food to fuel production as well as the environmental damage of its production. CEI early on – in 2006 — called attention to the land and environmental costs of expanded ethanol production because of the subsidies and other incentives, especially the renewable fuels mandate. In 2007, CEI pointed to the unintended consequences of the ethanol program. Check out CEI’s global warming website for news about CEI’s continued efforts to get rid of the ethanol mandate, subsidies, and tariffs.

LibertyWeek 93: Tea Party Euro Trip

by Richard Morrison on May 17, 2010

in CEI Projects, Features, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Richard Morrison and Jeremy Lott welcome Reason magazine Senior Editor Michael Moynihan to Episode 93 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We take on the high-profile congressional primaries, Chuck Schumer’s hypocritical stance on privacy, the fight for wine liberation in New York, passing the buck on debit card fees and we embark on a Tea Party Euro Trip.

LibertyWeek 60: The Man Who Fed the World

by Richard Morrison on September 14, 2009 · 1 comment

in CEI Projects, Features, Podcast

Host Richard Morrison and co-host Jeremy Lott welcome special guests Lee Doren and Greg Conko to Episode 60 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with a recap of the 9/12 D.C. Tax Protest, look into union rules that hurt minority contractors and consider the alleged ethics violations of former California Assemblyman Mike Duvall. We then turn to Greg Conko for his thoughts on free market healthcare reform and finish with a tribute to The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, Norman Borlaug (1914-2009).

DeMint’s Smaller-Government Stimulus

by Ivan Osorio on January 27, 2009 · 3 comments

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy

This week, Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), in response to President Obama’s stimulus plan, announced his own alternative stimulus package, which David Weigel, at the Washington Independent, summarizes thus:

• Make the Bush tax cuts permanent and “take uncertainty out of the economy.”

• Let small businesses “write off more of their business expenses.”

• Cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.

• Cut the capital gains tax.

• Cut spending and “reign in the out of control congressional earmarking practice.”

This would encourage investment in the most productive sectors of the economy, unlike Obama’s proposed $825 billion of increased spending, which DeMint criticized today at the Heritage Foundation. Of the infrastructure component of the stiumulus, he said that, “Less than 10 percent of this is going to roads and bridges,” with a lot of that money “going to liberal causes.”

DeMint also noted the importance of the opportunity costs, which those who tout the “benefits” of government spending rarely acknowledge. He noted that the costs of government spending extend beyond the dollar amounts government shells out, to the “costs in terms of allowing people to keep money in the private market,” since, “there’s a multiplier effect when the money is out there rather than comes here [to Washington].”

For more from David Weigel on Sen. DeMint’s remarks today, see here.

For more on how to “deregulate to stimulate,” see Wayne Crews’s essay in CEI’s new Agenda for Congress.