Do we really have food to burn, Senator Johanns?

Food to Burn?

Is Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns becoming an alcoholic? Perhaps he has been hitting the ethanol corn liquor a bit too much, along with his daffy colleague Senator Ben Nelson. Now he has come out in favor in watering down our gasoline with even more ethanol.

Alcohol is a lousy fuel. It is inefficient to produce and a comparatively weak energy source. No one would even consider running an internal combustion engine with alcohol unless it was subsidized and mandated by the government. Worse yet, using corn and other crops to make a trendy diluent for good old powerful gasoline results in higher feed costs to animal agriculturists. We see this as increased meat prices.

Bottom line: we don't have food to burn. Take off those fashionable Washington DC style blinders, Mike. Let us drill for oil and build more refineries here in the USA. Let the livestock eat the grain. Let the consumers decide what they want to put in their gas tanks. Let us eat reasonably priced meat.

What have you got against freedom of choice and cheap gasoline, Mike?
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Let the Senator know what you think. Click to email Senator Johanns.

Next big thing?

1994 Geo Metro

Not exactly a safe little tin can, it's slow and not much to look at but apparently a lot of prospective car buyers want one or something like it. The possibility of squeezing close to 50 mpg out of it is the motive. This eBay auction foto from North Carolina makes me wonder if sellers are dragging them out of bone yards.

Read a few reviews. People who drive older Geo Metros couldn't be much happier if they had a Lexus. America's best kept used car secret? If so, now's probably the time to find one.

Hillary Clinton doesn't pump her own gas

You should be taxing the rich, memsahib, not the gas.

Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn't driven a car or pumped gas in many years because of Secret Service restrictions. When she is in St. Louis, Mahatma Gandhi pumps her gas.

Gas tax holiday? I see it as a double-edged sword that will only cut in my favor. Call me selfish. You'd be right.

Nebraska: Tops with Tourists

Nebraska gas prices: almost this bad

We Nebraskans need to advertise this attraction. People will drive for miles to see and pay the Nations Highest Gasoline Prices. From K-Cow: Nebraska Tops National Gas Price Average: "Cornhusker state 29 cents above the national average." Twenty-nine cents, or about $5 or $6 a tankful.

State tourism will explode with folks from around the country, driving across Nebraska to get their pictures taken in front of our gas station price signs. Small towns could vie for the honor of being the very highest. The locals will prosper and the state coffers will grow fat with tax revenue. The bugeater state will become a tourist Mecca.

"Where are you taking your vacation this summer, Sid?"

"Up to Nebraska. The wife and kids can't wait to see those gas prices."

What Paul Bunyan did for Minnesota, these big gas prices will do for the Cornhusker State.
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Seriously, a summertime state gasoline tax break has been suggested out here where the tourist attractions are separated by miles and miles of plain old Nebraska. It made too much sense for the legislature, which has never trusted advice from economists. Our state gasoline taxes are higher than those in neighboring states. (See: Cross the River and Save in the Cattle Chute.)

We can't afford to lose the revenue, the Solons of Lincoln whined at the idea of a summer gas tax cut. Can you hear the small towns drying up and blowing away?