Gore, Kerry And Obama: Wrong Again!

When was the last time the Left got something right?

Cold war? Wrong.
Reaganomics? Wrong.
Welfare Reform? Wrong.
Gun control lowers gun violence? Wrong.
Appeasing North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Yassir Arafat? Wrong, wrong, wrong...

We will soon be adding "global warming panic" to that list, but first, here is yet another glaring error by the "we're so much smarter than you" wing of American politics: Ethanol and biofuels.

Poor families in Mexico and Haiti are going hungry right now so that pompous Prius-driving libs can feel better about themselves. And, as usual, the go-green goofballs on the Left lack that most vital element in their undying support for ethanol mandates, a.k.a. "the facts."

To create just one gallon of fuel, ethanol slurps up 1,700 gallons of water, according to Cornell's David Pimentel, and 51 cents of tax credits. And it still can't compete against oil without a protective 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imports and a federal mandate that forces it into our gas tanks. The record 30 million acres the U.S. will devote to ethanol production this year will consume almost a third of America's corn crop while yielding fuel amounting to less than 3% of petroleum consumption.

In December the Congressional Research Service warned that even devoting every last ear of American-grown corn to ethanol would not create enough "renewable fuel" to meet federal mandates...Now scientists are showing that ethanol will exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. A February report in the journal Science found that "corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years . . . Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%."

Hungry people, more pollution, higher taxes and less energy. Why, the Left has done it again! It's the trifecta of terrible public policy!

I mention Gore, Kerry and Obama because they all support this stupidity, just as they all opposed welfare reform, supported detente with the Soviet empire, got Reaganonics wrong, etc., etc. And--coincidence or something more?--they are the three most recent Democratic nominees for president.

But Sen. Obama deserves a special place on this list because, not only does he support the idiocy of ethanol, he has actually proposed mandating 65 billion gallons a year of alternative fuel by 2025! To put that in perspective, if every ear of corn in the entire country were used for ethanol, it wouldn't be enough to hit that target.

And, if anyone at Obama HQ cares, the actualyresult of this policy would be more starvation and pollution.

Hey--who needs facts when you've got "change" and "audacity!" If only Barack Obama had the "audacity" to "change" his economically irrational, scientifically indefensible position on ethanol.