ROFL Tucker Bounds "McCain supports ethanol but not ethanol subsidies"

DES MOINES, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposes the $300 billion farm bill and subsidies for ethanol, positions that both supporters and opponents say might cost him votes he needs in the upper Midwest this November.

McCain vs. The Ag Interests
POSTED: 03:23 PM ET, 10/17/2008 by The Editors
TAGS: John McCain, farm subsidies, presidential debate

Farmers and food processors have given Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) more than twice as much money as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), but they may have second thoughts about that after he proposed taking an axe to two programs that are sacrosanct in farm country, Washington Post contract writer Dan Morgan reports.

Asked during Wednesday night's presidential debate where he would cut the budget, McCain singled out federal assistance to the Midwest's booming ethanol industry and a $200 million-a-year program that promotes agricultural exports.

But at a rally here Sunday afternoon, Mr. McCain seemed to suggest that government has a role in promoting corn ethanol.

“We’ll invest in all energy alternatives: nuclear, wind, tide, solar, ethanol, biofuels,” he said at a rally at the University of Norther Iowa. “We’ll encourage the manufacture of hydro and flex fuel automobiles. And on the subject of ethanol, my friends, I will open every market in the world to the best products in the world, and that’s the American agriculture farm.”

Mr. McCain did not explicitly state that he favors continuing the tariffs and multi-billion dollar annual government subsidies that keep the American corn ethanol industry afloat (and have helped contribute to a rise in food prices in the United States and around the world). But the economic logic contained in the position he stated here points almost inevitably in that direction.

Until now, Mr. McCain has talked of subsidies for corn ethanol with the same disdain he reserves for earmarks and pork-barrel spending.