Dems: "We can't drill our way to energy independence! What you dumb voters need is...*ethanol*"

There was a time — and not so long ago — when America’s leading Democrats (including Obozo) complained that we were “addicted to oil,” and warn that "we can't just drill our way out of this.”

This turned out to be a) simpleminded, b) patronizing, and c) wrong.  In other words, par for the course.

Of course the Democrats had what they called "solutions" for this dire crisis: Stop using oil and the products made from it.  One proposed "solution" that the Democrats promised would help cut our huge dependence on imported oil was to burn… ethanol instead of gasoline.

Democrats claimed ethanol was the magic fix because you could make it from corn or grain--products that were "renewable."  "Renewable energy!" became a Democrat goal, and a Dem-controlled congress passed a law forcing companies that made gasoline to buy ethanol and add it to the gas they sold.  The law had a target that for every nine gallons of gasoline, refiners "blend in" one gallon of ethanol.

Just one small problem:  It cost more to make a gallon of ethanol from corn than to make a gallon of pure gasoline from crude oil.  This inconvenient truth threatened to make the newly-mandated ethanol-blend gas more expensive than pure gasoline. 

Members of congress had nightmares of angry voters kicking them out of office.  Can't have that!

But never fear, citizen:  Dem members of congress--in a classic response--devised a "solution:"  They added a provision to the law giving extra tax dollars to the EPA to give to ethanol producers to make ethanol cost less to refiners.  So every taxpayer--even those who didn't own a car--ended up paying for this boondoggle!  Yay, congress is SO brilliant!

(There was also a second small problem: ethanol gave fewer miles per gallon than gasoline.  But hey, who worries about stuff like that, right?  Hell, how many consumers even know that?  Of course the Lying Mainstream Media knew, and could have told you.  But of course, they didn't want to, cuz the media was all-in supporting this boondoggle for their Democrat allies.)

Not surprisingly, with refiners suddenly forced by law to buy ethanol and add it to the gasoline they made and sold, American farmers began planting vast amounts corn.  In fact for several years now over half of all corn grow in the U.S. has not been used to feed people, but instead to make ethanol and feed animals.

But then a totally unexpected thing happened:  During the last six years of Obama's reign, American ingenuity and capital perfected several techniques for finding and producing oil that vastly increased U.S. oil production.  In fact a few months ago the U.S. became the world’s largest oil producer.  Where the U.S. had once imported millions of barrels of foreign oil every day, we're now "energy independent"--something Obama and his Dems in congress repeatedly sneered was absolutely impossible.

"We can't just drill our way out of this,” he and they sneered.  Simply un-possible, citizen. 

So...no more dependence on imported oil!  Should be good news, right?  Free markets doing the magic that they do--no government mandates needed.  And with oil prices (adjusted for inflation) at 30-year lows, pure gasoline, from oil, was now a LOT less expensive than ethanol.

But there was a problem: as you could have guessed, all those farmers who had gone all-in planting corn for ethanol — and the companies that turned corn into ethanol— were now addicted to that sweet cash extracted from consumers by law.  They weren't about to give up that market, and instead of allowing the gruberment to reduce the mandated percent of ethanol, they wanted to increase it from 10 to 15%..

The swamp creatures in D.C. don't grow corn or pump oil, yet they claim to know exactly how the two should be blended for the betterment of us all.

Result?  The requirement to add vast amounts of costly ethanol into gasoline--and the billions of dollars paid to ethanol producers to prevent the use of this inferior fuel from increasing the cost at the pump--will almost certainly be with us forever.

Government!  Is there anything it can't do?

H/T American Spectator.