Senator Shaheen has signed onto a letter to Senate Majority leader Reid and Minority leader McConnell, suggesting that the corn based ethanol mandates, and all the tariffs and protections associated with it, not be extended. Your initial reaction might be surprise, but this is not in and of itself surprising. Shaheen is on the record being against them since at least 2008 when she ran for the US Senate but not because she is against ethanol. Her problem is the kind of ethanol, and so we can assume her co-signers have similar issues.
On the surface they are claiming to be against the law (the mandate) that props up ethanol on three fronts and also gives 31 billion dollars to the oil companies to offset the cost of forcing them to add ethanol to fossil based motor fuels. I’m against corporate welfare so I can’t object to repeal even with ulterior motives, but this starts off as a calculated, backhanded poke in the eye, not just to the stupidity of the subsidy regime that liberals normally love, but to big oil. And we should expect oil to get screwed. We should simply accept that even with repeal of the ethanol mandate, we could still see the government use other means of legislative or bureaucratic force to keep ethanol in the fuel supply and pass those costs off to the oil companies. If they can screw oil and get what they really want along the way, that’s a dream come true to Progressives. But what do these signers really want?
As usual, nothing in Washington is quite what it seems.
NH Employment Services has released its October report for the most recent New Hampshire jobs data and it’s not good for John Lynch. The state continues to lose its human capital. The granite state shed another 360 workers in August to parts unknown as the post ‘end of the recession’ exodus of our civilian workforce rose to 16,550. So from July 2009 to Aug 2010, 16,550 people gave up looking for work in John Lynch’s New Hampshire, ‘Lynch-Marched’ right out of our local job market. That doesn’t happen in a healthy pro job-growth environment. If John Lynch and the democrats were really doing their political ‘best’ the Civilian work force would be rising as people felt compelled to come here to look for work because more business and industry though of New Hampshire as a business friendly environment. But it’s not. It’s hostile.
