In 2007 Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize (jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) for his work on climate change (formerly known as global warming), including his documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Doubts have been raised about the accuracy of former Vice President Gore’s film, but Mr. Gore told, or should I say admitted to, another inconvenient truth last month at green energy conference in Athens, and this inconvenient truth is absolutely true. This truth is simple: we can’t trust our politicians when it comes to giving government subsidies, passing special tax breaks, etc. But let Mr. Gore explain this inconvenient truth in his own words:
"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol.
First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.
It's hard once such a programme is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.
One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."
Some of us realized this was true, but for many people, and for lots of our politicians in Washington, this discloses a most inconvenient truth. It is a most inconvenient truth for liberals and big government conservatives because they like to think our government knows what it is doing when it supports things like ethanol. Some people like to think government is smart enough to decide the best way to fuel our cars. Others like to think government officials can pick winners when it comes to new ways to do things. Still others think the government can identify the growth industries of the future. In fact, some of them even like to think there really are shovel-ready projects the government can fund to stimulate the economy.
But in the vast majority of cases, these things are not true. Government can pick winners now and then. It can make the right choice every once in a while. And liberals and big government conservatives use those examples to justify subsidizing more programs, funding more projects, and giving out more tax breaks. But the law of averages and the law of unintended consequences eventually catch up with those programs and projects and subsidies. Money is wasted, and outcomes are worse than if the government had just left things alone.
Sometimes these subsidies and projects are done with the best of intentions. Other times, as former Vice President Gore admitted, they are not. And that is another reason why we can’t let our politicians make these kinds of decisions. Not only don’t they know enough to make these decisions, but based on what former Vice President Gore’s said, they can’t be trusted to even try to make the right decision. We have ethanol because of farmers and Archer Daniels Midland – and because politicians like Al Gore wanted to be president.*
This is definitely an inconvenient truth. But it also shows us the solution. The solution is not more rules or better politicians. That won’t work. Rules can’t cover everything, and most politicians are no better than the system they participate in. The solution, instead, is simple: Stop the subsidies; stop the tax breaks; stop trying to pick winners. Because our government – and politicians – can’t do it.
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* In 2008 there was one major presidential candidate who both knew ethanol subsidies were not good and had the courage to oppose them in Iowa. The rest of the candidates either didn’t know it or they didn’t have the guts to say so. It was encouraging that this candidate got his party’s nomination. It was discouraging that he didn’t win.
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