Bob Maistros

As part of my continuing public service to the Republican leadership in Congress, not to mention the world, I’m going to keep offering free but highly valuable advice on how to make governing easy.

My first advice was for the GOP to double down on the FAIR Tax, which is a one-program-solves-all approach to fixing government.  Since that morsel of wisdom is, shockingly, virtually certain to be ignored, I’m willing to meet the Republican bigwigs where they are – or where they claim to be – on the other side of the fiscal equation, spending.

Amber waves of $$$$.

In their Pledge to America, the GOP brass promises to “roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone.”

Now what’s going to happen if the Republican Party starts seriously hacking at spending?  Howls and screams from the favored constituencies.  Caterwauling about starving poor people and depriving babies of health care and kicking Grandma down the stairs.  Because one fella’s wasteful spending is another’s mother’s milk.

Only one sure way exists to defend oneself and one’s party from such sophistry.  And that is to create a philosophical basis and a standard for cutting outlays: make budget cuts about ridding Americans of bad government.  After all, why would anyone want to pay for government that is not only not helpful, but downright counterproductive?

Now we all know (from reading my postings here) that the epitome of bad government is the stoplight, which is not so much a federal issue.  But if the Republicans want to show they really are serious about putting Uncle Sam on a diet, here’s an easy and obvious place to start:  ethanol subsidies.

Yeah, you read that right.  I wrote “ethanol subsidies.”

Consider what Angelo Codevilla, in his brilliant new book The Ruling Class (an instabook extrapolated from his milestone, masterpiece article from last summer in the American Spectator), has to say on the subject:

“(T)he ethanol industry exists exclusively because legislation mandates the use of its subsidized product.  The U.S. government pays producers $1.78 per gallon in direct subsidies and tariffs.  After Americans pay for ethanol through taxes, they get to pay higher prices at the pump – another massive diversion of wealth from ordinary people who are forced to buy an inferior product at a higher price, to the privileged people who set the rules.”

Sounds pretty much like bad government to me.

That’s just one of those wild-eyed conservatives, you say?  Take a gander at this commentary from that noted right-wing journal, Time magazine:

“(S)everal new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous …. Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry.”

Oh.

Time still too conservative for your tastes?  How about this commentary in the Washington Post from Lester Brown, founder of the goo-goo enviro-leftist Worldwatch Institute, and a colleague?

“(W)e call upon Congress to revisit recently enacted federal mandates requiring the diversion of foodstuffs for production of biofuels. In fact, (the mandates are) causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis …. Meanwhile, the mandates are not reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Last year, the United States burned about a quarter of its national corn supply as fuel — and this led to only a 1 percent reduction in the country’s oil consumption.”

So this is an easy one, right?  Of course the Republicans are going to rush to dismantle this wildly expensive, economically damaging, environmentally counterproductive textbook example of bad government.

Excuse me while I roll on the floor in paroxysms of laughter.

You mean take totally billions in unwarranted subsidies away from the agribusiness complex and – hand over heart – the family farmer?  I’ll bet my old boss and renowned budget hawk, Senator Chuck Grassley of Io-way, is going to be first in line to cast that vote, with a long queue of prairie populists and born-again Tea Party fanatics right behind him.

Stop it.  My sides are splitting here.

Even I write this, Keystone State Senator-elect and fiscal conservative Pat Toomey is appearing on Hannity agreeing that it’s “put-up-or-shut-up time” and that “we’ve got to get spending under control.”

As the kids say, “Shut up.”  Really.

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