Will Obama's choice of former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack  to head the US Department of Agriculture do anything to shift the subsidies mountain? The Boston Globe thinks not. And, sadly, we must agree. Unless there are some surprises in store . . .

Comments

[Felix S]

I agree that farm subsidies are the work of a spiteful little demigod somewhere in hell. It does not look like Vilsak is that demigod though. From The Economist:
"What's more, during his brief presidential run, Mr Vilsack showed a flash of anti-corn courage. He proposed scrapping the tariff on Brazilian, sugar-based (and cleaner and greener) ethanol, which would compete directly with his home state's stuff. The idea was to make ethanol generally more economical, by spurring the creation of ethanol infrastructure. That in turn would make it more attractive to invest in future ethanol technologies, like cellulosic. So a mere corn-subsidy addict Mr Vilsack is not."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/12/vilsack_and_corn.cfm

Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky.