Pork is Back, No, It Never Left

Rich Lowry writes, concerning continued ethanol-fuel support in the proposed tax compromise:

In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington’s gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America’s corn crop...

...Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley, the Democratic and Republican senators from Iowa respectively, stand at the doors of Congress declaring: Ethanol now, ethanol forever. They have graced the Obama-McConnell tax bargain with an extension of a tax credit for ethanol that costs about $6 billion a year, and with an extension of a tariff on ethanol imports. Ethanol is so uneconomical that Congress supports it three different ways — with a mandate for its use, a tax credit to subsidize it, and a tariff to keep out competitors. Rarely are so many levers of government used to prop up one woeful product.

This whole November 2nd was about not wasting money on stupid pork. But here we go again, subsidizing a program that even green hippie vegans are denouncing.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have never "huffed" spray paint or sniffed glue, and consequently have retained my ability to do math. And math pretty much dictates what you think about ethanol subsidies.