The healthcare reform bill proposed by Nancy Pelosi is about to become even less popular as more are informed of the “last-minute changes” recently reported (11/4/09) by the NY Times. Apparently, the nearly 2,000 paged bill wasn’t exhaustive enough to encompass all the intricacies. Of course, the significance in the number of pages and the “last-minute changes” are evident: What else, besides healthcare, does this bill address? Are we to assume a number of clever earmarks?
How about a tax provision for biofuels, including ethanol? Now, I know what you’re thinking, biofuels have nothing to do with healthcare. But I assure you they do. Unfortunately, the legislation proposed and supported by Madame Speaker is only making things worse, not better. Let me explain briefly…
Besides the common sense uneasiness agriculture intervention by the government lends to the public as a whole, who would prefer to know that their nation can sustain itself with its agriculture needs with a variety of crops supported by the free market, there are many other logical reasons to question government subsidies. The destructive path such legislation has paved is evident in a number of agribusinesses, but let’s take corn as our example.
Under the guise of public necessity, our government manipulates crop production according to foreign policy via subsidies. No sugar from Cuba? Let’s grow more corn and make corn syrup (it worked for Europe with beet sugar, right?). We’ll subsidize the farmers so they can meet the market’s demand at such a reduced price that no profiteer will complain (so low that it doesn’t even come close to breaking even for production! In other words, large “junk food” corporations are better off buying from government subsidized farmers than growing their own corn- or other sugar product).
Subsequently, farmers swap their crops out in favor of corn due to the profitable government subsidies. It’s hard to say no, when the government has distributed around $60 billion in the last decade or so for corn alone. With pesticides and GMO practices crops overflow with low quality feed for cattle, which, it turns out, the livestock are poorly suited to digest. Hence, they become sick and consistently need large doses of antibiotics. (By the way, Turkey issued a new regulation on its “food and feed products,” meaning our exports will take a hit because our low quality GMO-pesticide-contaminated corn we feed our livestock in the US is not acceptable in Turkey. Turkey is the largest buyer of corn gluten feed from the US.)
In turn, we eat beef of inferior quality, and some say our diet is dangerously contaminated as a result. Now we are using the excess corn to fund a new market and perpetuate the intrusive government subsidies. Biofuel is disguised as a contender to the oil tycoons yet is actually costly to make and has a number of negative consequences. Not to say the oil tycoons should continue their energy monopoly, but rather that the solutions offered are often cleverly concealed and should not be accepted at face value.
