A Test For House Republicans

by Stuart Shapiro

The Senate last week, in a broad bipartisan effort, voted to repeal the ethanol tax credit.  This will save over $6 billion annually and get rid of a subsidy that has perverse effects on both the fuel and food markets.  Next step?

We join the 99.974 percent of economists in applauding the Senate’s bipartisan vote to repeal the 45-cent-a-gallon tax credit reaped by ethanol refiners. That doesn’t mean we’re done with the credit, of course: The refiners, led by ADM, will have a thing or three to say to House Republicans, who are now caught between the Tea Party and their corporate benefactors.

So what will it be, Speaker Boehner?  The Tea Party or Archer Daniels Midland?

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.