Minnesota Free Market Institute

Minnesota Free Market Institute senior policy fellow Craig Westover writes at MinnPost.com:

Instability in the oil-producing areas of the world is often cited as a major reason for creating a domestic ethanol industry by subsidizing the industry and supporting it by mandating the ethanol content of gasoline at the pump. Corn-based fuel grown right here in Minnesota, so the reasoning goes, contributes to the American security and energy independence. But other news stories this week raise questions about the absoluteness of that claim. Spring planting for Minnesota farmers is behind schedule, and delays in getting the state's corn crop in the ground can have significant negative effects on the state's corn yield and hence ethanol production.

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Dear Governor Pawlenty:

It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and somebody is making a phone call. Not to the White House. A child has spiked a fever of 104. Worried parents are trying to reach a doctor.

When people have medical emergencies or just simple medical questions, whether it's 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon, they don't care how the Health Care Access Fund is divvied up. They're worried. They want to talk to doctors they trust, find out what is wrong and have their doctors make it all better.

Public policy that helps that happen is good public policy, Governor. Public policy that hinders that happening is bad public policy.

An amazing thing about the liberal mind-set is its capacity to compartmentalize – to isolate issues as if they existed in a vacuum. Case in point is the meme circulating among the supporters of Al Franken that his lapses in paying his obligations to government are not a character flaw; Franken is the victim of a complex tax code. Consider this prime example – Charley Quimby’s defense of Al Franken’s failure to file proper business and tax forms associated with Franken’s various business enterprises.