Iowa Senators know how to fill the pork barrel

The Hawkeye Handouts:

One measure of ethanol's political clout is that reformers merely hoped to cut the tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline to 36 cents per gallon from the current 45 cents that was due to expire at the end of the year. Instead, the deal keeps the full subsidy in place for another year, at a cost to taxpayers of $4.9 billion, and it retains the 54-cent per gallon tariff on ethanol imports that was also expiring.

Direct subsidies and trade protectionism, plus mandates that force consumers to buy ethanol: This is the trifecta of government support, and all for an industry that is 30 years old and that even Al Gore now admits serves none of its advertised environmental purposes.

The ethanol extension is the bipartisan handiwork of Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin, who both regularly abandon their professed principles (fiscal conservatism for the Republican and equity for the Democrat) in the service of agribusiness.