TOM DASCHLE
(Thomas Andrew Daschle)
The George W. Bush administration when they had a Republican-controlled Congress, had amended the tax laws to treat the earnings of the hedge fund managers differently from people who manage other enterprises in the nation. They gave a group of very wealthy managers whose earnings were already amongst the highest of any managers in the country a huge tax break, while little public attention was paid to the subtlety of complex tax laws. Daschle and others began to draw public attention to the inequity.
The Congress had voted to require 10 percent of all the gasoline sold in America to be alcohol made from corn to reduce the air pollution of car driving. They precluded using Brazilian alcohol made from sugar cane which was already available and far less expensive. In a classic example of unintended consequences the price of grain worldwide increased harming some of the very poor nations. The price of corn run increased in the United States because the law required corn alcohol and nothing else was allowed. Farmers across America switched from wheat, soybeans and other grains to corn to earn more money. This then diminished the American supply and raised the price of wheat and other grains which Americans could afford but much of the rest of the world could not. And now the U. S. had less grain to export driving the world price higher. Worst of all, the environmental impact was negative—not positive. In addition to the carbon dioxide problem Daschle discusses in this quote, the electrical energy that was generated with oil and needed to turn the corn into alcohol required more oil than was saved by using the alcohol. Everyone lost except the corn farmers. The political promises to make corn alcohol required were made by most of the candidates during the Iowa presidential primaries the previous year.
The Energy Industry had donated over $50 million to the Republican Party and the President and Vice President both had longstanding ties to the energy industry.
Thomas Andrew Daschle is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he became U.S. Senate Minority Leader in 1995 and later the Majority Leader in 2001.
