Tim Pawlenty Only Likes the Good Kind of Corporate Welfare

Also known as the kind that benefit lots of voters in Iowa, where he'd very much like to win a Republican primary:

During Pawlenty's speech, he criticized Wall Street and corporate welfare, what he termed "special deals for some.''

But when asked after the speech about ethanol subsidies—which have come under fired from some fiscal conservatives, but are considered crucial in Iowa, where Pawlenty's campaign could live or die—he hedged.

"We can't just pull the rug out from under the industry,'' he said. "There are going to have to be some changes, but we have to be fair-minded about it.''

(Link via Veronique de Rugy's Twitter feed.)

Good reasons to kill ethanol subsidies? They make beer more expensive. Also, they significantly increase the cost of feeding the world's population. 

I was happy to see Pawlenty reject ObamaCare cash for the state of Minnesota last year. 

Comments

[zoltan]

FUCKING WELFARE QUEEN.

[Aresen]

Good reasons to kill ethanol subsidies? They make beer more expensive.

Now, it's PERSONAL.

[ClubMedSux]

Everything is making beer more expensive these days. High gas prices make shipping more expensive. Agricultural subsidies make domestic ingredients more expensive. A weak dollar makes imported ingredients more expensive (not to mention imported beer). State-mandated three-tiered distribution systems make everything more expensive. Etc., etc., etc...

[Mainer]

Here we go again. F*ck Iowa.

[Episiarch]

Tim is the great Cornholio! He needs TP for his bunghole!

[heller]

Are you threatening me?

[Citizen Nothing]

So if Gary Johnson is the only candidate in the primaries to outright oppose ethanol subsidies, and 25 percent of the Republican voters in Iowa have any real principles, he'll do OK, right?
AHAHAHHHAHHHAHAHAH!

[Jeffersonian]

Unless those principles include being perpetual recipients of federal ethanol subsidies, sure.

[The American People?]

Whats ethanol?

[Mister DNA]

Most people think subsidies are underwater villages.

[ClubMedSux]

Subsidies for some... Miniature American flags for others!

[Tim]

I voted Kodos.

[Kool]

Facist!

[John Thacker]

I really don't care so much that politicians pander to Iowa in an attempt to win the caucuses (though I wish they wouldn't)-- what I care about is that they don't stop pandering after getting elected.

Politicians lie and break promises made during primaries and elections all the time. There are bigger reasons that politicians don't turn around and push to reduce ethanol subsidies-- Obama certainly isn't worried about losing the Iowa caucuses for 2012.

The general (and worse) implication is that a politician that hedges on ethanol subsidies will favor all sorts of other bad subsidies when in office too, ones unrelated to winning a primary.

[Aresen]

I really don't care so much that politicians pander to Iowa in an attempt to win the caucuses (though I wish they wouldn't)-- what I care about is that they don't stop pandering after getting elected.

Politicians lie and break promises made during primaries and elections all the time.

It is those lovely campaign donations from Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill and the rest of the AgriCorporations that help keep them true to those Iowa promises.

[deified]

The most depressing part of this is that it is a literally insoluble problem so long as representation in the U.S. Senate is equivalent regardless of size and there are (however many) farm states as there are. I hate to agree with Pauly Krugnutz on this (seriously, I just pooped a little), but the Farm States have power that is waaaaaaay disproportionate to their population. We are, almost literally, in service to giant stalks of corn.

[Jim]

This is what secretly happens behind the scenes in Iowa. I can't get the stupid link to work right, but it's the novel I'm referring to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_Home_(novel)

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why is the rest of the nation forced to give a shit about Iowa? No one cares about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do they? DO THEY? No, they don't. Where are the untouchable subsidies for whatever the fuck it is we still produce here in the Keystone state? Big federal moneys for hunting deer or playing high school football or some shit like that.

[Mister DNA]

No one would ever support Scrapple subsidies.

[Tim]

Right. I'd like to see a candidate go in there and announce : " OF COURSE I am going to lose big, I AM GOING TO CUT THEIR FUCKING SUBSIDIES! Coming in last is a badge of honor."

Could work.

[nobody]

I think PA's Marcellus Shale will be that thing for a couple of decades.

[heller]

I knew Pawlenty sounded too stupid to be cool.

[Dagny T.]

I would like to pull the rug out from under the rat-otter furrie-making industry for reasons unrelated to subsidies.

[Pip]

T-Paw sure has an ugly wife.

[TrickyVic]

""T-Paw sure has an ugly wife.""

He got the best his wife subsidy could afford.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Is that a monocled gopher? I sure hope so.

[Citizen Nothing]

Add a top hat and it could be the new LP mascot --
Donkeys, elephants and capitalist gophers.

[SugarFree]

Gophers trespass. They have no respect for property rights. And I don't want the LP theme song to be by Kenny Loggins.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Hmm...what animal doesn't trespass on private property, is completely self-reliant and doesn't live communally? Whatever that animal is, stick on a monocle and top hat, and that will be our mascot.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Ooh ooh! Monocled badgers. Avoid humans, live alone, self-reliant. Likes getting drunk on rotten fruit. Plus they're supposedly awesome warriors.

[cynical]

That doesn't seem fair. Humans don't respect animal property rights, so why should animals respect human property rights? Sounds like a double standard to me, you hypocritical corporatist bastard.

[Aresen]

Yes.

Unfortunately, the last of its species.

It died of acute bullshit exposure shortly after the photo was taken.

[TrickyVic]

I hear Bill Murry is still chasing it.

[Tman]

Good reasons to kill ethanol subsidies? They make beer more expensive. Also, they significantly increase the cost of feeding the world's population.

I also want to know how much ethanol adds to the cost of gas at the pump. How much would gas prices fall if the ethanol was removed? Or would it fall at all?

I know that the ethanol lobby is getting a free BJ from taxpayers every year, but I'm curious if some of that money is from the taxes on gas itself.

[Arcaster]

FWIW the price of of mid-grade gas with no ethanol is cheaper than the price of regular with ethanol in my hometown.

[It Works]

When it benefits "job-creators", it shouldn't be called Corporate Welfare. It should be called "benign wealth redistribution". Everyone knows that there is a direct correlation to money given to corporations and the number of Americans they hire in America. Or do they?

[x,y]

"We can't just pull the rug out from under the industry,'' he said. "There are going to have to be some changes, but we have to be fair-minded about it.''

SOP for a POS.

[Starvation Chic]

The poor are too fat anyway -- what is this obsession with affordable food?

[Gene Berkman]

It is pretty amazing to see so many conservative politicians visit Iowa and discover that farm subsidies really are important...

One politician once defied conventional wisdom. In 1988, Michael Dukakis, campaigning in Iowa for the Democratic caucuses, suggested getting rid of subsidies. He said farmers could move from growing subsidized wheatand instead grow more valuable produce, like Belgian endive.

He was of course widely ridiculed for suggesting Belgian endive, and many wrote off his campaign. He did lose the Iowa caucus, but he carried Iowa in November against George H.W. Bush, and Iowa went for every Democrat nominee for President after that until 2004. So Belgian endive did not sink his campaign.