Ethanol subsidies, oil drilling incentives, government insurance and loan guarantees for nuclear energy, natural gas subsidies: These proposals tend to have as many or more Republican advocates as Democratic advocates. Even worse, self-described free-market conservatives often rally for energy subsidies and claim it’s not a deviation from their principles.
Today, at the liberal environmentalist website Grist, blogger Dave Roberts takes to task Newt Gingrich. Roberts, with whom I often spar on the Interwebs, has a great (and depressing) argument and analysis of Gingrich’s defense of current energy subsidies and proposal for even more energy subsidies. This is the heart of the argument:
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Amen. Later on, Roberts sounds like me:
I’ve written plenty on subsidies for “green” energy (windmills, electric cars, ethanol). But I’ve also written about subsidies for oil, nuclear, natural gas, and coal. And a month back, Max Borders had a great post on our Opinion Zone blog on the Republicans’ “all-of-the-above” energy plan as being “right-wing rent-seeking.”
