One curious side effect of the ethanol subsidy is to underwrite ADM's liquor sales. Although Washington does not formally subsidize gin, ADM can use its ethanol production capacity, long funded by Uncle Sam, to make booze. Aid to Farmers Dependent on Ethanol. Iowan voters looking for a signal about a candidate's willingness to take on the special interests in Washington might do well to look first to reward those candidates brave enough to say no to ethanol. Ethanol has no profitable value on the free market.
Ethanol costs almost twice as much as regular gasoline to produce yet creates less power.
To make ethanol viable, the American taxpayer pays producers of ethanol 54 cents a gallon for a product that competes with similar fuels that sell on the free market for between 45 cents and 60 cents a gallon. Originally appeared in Investor's Business Daily. Ethanol is a poor energy source, costing more than twice as much as the wholesale price of gasoline to produce. Ethanol, mostly distilled from corn, is more costly to produce than other fuels and cannot be profitably produced without a subsidy. This is probably the most economically inefficient, unwarranted form of corporate welfare in our entire federal budget.