Food prices are soaring all over the world. The global food chain is reportedly stretched to the limit, fueled by the fact “that more than a third of the corn produced in the U.S is now used to make ethanol.” As a result of such “bio-fuels” subsidies, one of the world’s largest food producers predicts a “global food crisis.”Unfortunately, the Obama administration has long pushed ethanol subsidies, even though such subsidies have a history of spawning famines and food riots overseas. For example, the costly climate-change legislation backed by the administration contained massive ethanol subsidies.
The administration is now forcing up the ethanol content of gasoline through EPA regulations, heedless of the fact that ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution. Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution.
Ethanol subsidies are not the only way that the Obama administration is harming poor people. The administration is also discouraging poor Americans from purchasing cheap, nutritious food. For example, it has also disparaged the consumption of potatoes, banning white potatoes from the federal WIC program, while allowing WIC money to be spent on far less nutritious things that are starchy, fatty or sugary (such as apple sauce, which has no nutrition unless vitamin C is artificially added to it).
The Obama administration is also using federal funds to subsidize the opening of an International House of Pancakes in Washington, D.C., despite its sugary and fattening entrees, and the development of high-calorie foods that benefit politically connected agribusinesses.
