Obama not so squeeky clean

It's always kind of sad when these kinds of potential concerns just get a shrug because it's indicative of a lot of people in elected office. I hope he's done nothing untoward and he addresses it strongly.

I'm sure he's not an Eagle Scout, either. And I have been fairly sure for a while that he may be more modern-day politician, often without the best motives, than Mr. Smith.

One example... We are committed to corn ethanol in this country. But the amount of energy corn ethanol yields relative to the energy that goes into its production is not very efficient compared to some easy alternatives. The Brazilians, for example, committed to sugar ethanol, which is cheaper to produce and generates way more energy relative to what goes into the production (eight times more energy for the cost). And in Brazil, many cars run on sugar ethanol alone for half the price that we pay for gas.

Why doesn't the U.S. do something that logical? Because so many politicians are in the hip pocket of the domestic sugar lobby, including--actually he's a leader of this--Obama. So because of backward-ass legislation protecting the domestic lobbyists, the price of sugar here is kept artificially high (twice as high as the world average) and there are ridiculous tariffs on sugar imports that make it way too expensive to export sugar here to compete with what's grown domestically. Of course, forgetting about ethanol, it effects the prices in the grocery store for Joe Sixpack.

It's also coupled with them ridiculously boosting corn farmers with unfair favorable treatment. So we are stuck with an inefficient source of ethanol because of politicians whose coffers are being kept full by the respective lobbying groups. And as Americans we're worse off. They've fixed it so you can't even import sugar ethanol. Congress imposed a 54 cent per gallon tariff on sugar-based ethanol to protect the corn producers. They have it fixed from every angle.

The reason I brought this one up is that when I was first learning about this (including a good, short New Yorker short story last year), I was reading up and found out that Obama had been in the forefront of this mess--catering to the lobbyists and imposing those tariffs.

He's young, bright and good-looking. But it doesn't mean he's not above the story that started this thread (although I am willing to give him a chance to prove otherwise), and it's been proven that at least some of his political decisions aren't in the best interests of America when it's a choice between that and his campaign funds.

I'm also not implying this is just an Obama problem or a Democratic problem. Ask George Bush about ethanol, and he'll tell you that it comes from corn. He's said so many times.