Politics
Steven Rattner, former "auto czar" for U.S. President Barack Obama, wrote an Op-ed for The New York Times in June, 2011, entitled "The Great Corn Con," characterizing ethanol as "an example of government policy run amok." Along with the economic and environmental impacts of the U.S. policy, he noted the impact of the issue on presidential politics:
Those hopefuls have seen no need for a foolish consistency. John McCain and John Kerry were against ethanol subsidies, then as candidates were for them. Having lost the presidency, Mr. McCain is now against them again. Al Gore was for ethanol before he was against it. This time, one hopeful is experimenting with counter-programming: as governor of corn-producing Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty pushed for subsidies before he embraced a "straight talk" strategy.
Rattner did not address President Obama's long-time alignment with Illinois and U.S. corn producers on the issue.
Read more about this topic: Issues Relating To Biofuels
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices.... Politics has once again become religious.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)
“We are naïve and moralistic women. We are human beings. Who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)