Ethanol subsidies are treated on The Bob Zadek Show as an instance of corporate welfare: a federal diversion of resources to corn growers that continued after its stated rationale was publicly abandoned. The excerpts address the policy in two episodes, one devoted to farming subsidies and one in which ethanol subsidies appear only in a list of topics.
The ethanol scandal
In the 2011 episode on farming subsidies, Bob Zadek calls ethanol “the largest obscenity of all” and frames the policy as an Iowa-driven failed concept meant to insulate the country from dependency on foreign oil. He describes the plan in the words of corn growers: extract ethanol from corn, put it in gas tanks, and tell the Saudi Arabians they are no longer needed. Farming Subsidies (2011)
Zadek identifies Al Gore as one of ethanol’s largest promoters. He says Gore was a large spokesperson for ethanol during its early years and pushed to get ethanol forced into gas tanks. Zadek then says Gore recently came out of the ethanol closet and publicly admitted that when he promoted ethanol he did so to win the Iowa primary or the Iowa caucus, and that he knew then and acknowledges now that the idea ethanol would make the country less dependent on foreign oil was not true. Farming Subsidies (2011)
From that admission Zadek draws the question he returns to throughout the segment: when the chief sponsor admits the concept was phony, shouldn’t the government reverse the policy and go back to using corn for food? He answers that it does not. He says that, compliments of President Obama, the requirement that ethanol be used as a domestic fuel is being increased. He calls the program another corporate welfare opportunity and says valuable dollars are diverted from addressing the deficit to a flawed concept of ethanol in the gas tank, and that it continues and grows. Farming Subsidies (2011)
The segment’s structure is a contrast between admission and continuation: the promoter concedes the rationale was false, and the subsidy expands anyway. Zadek’s framing is that the policy’s persistence is evidence of the political durability of a benefit once it has been conferred, not of any surviving argument for the program.
Ethanol subsidies in the Gary Johnson episode
Ethanol subsidies also appear in the April 2011 episode featuring former New Mexico Governor and 2012 presidential candidate Gary Johnson. The episode’s topic list includes ethanol subsidies alongside the Libya intervention, foreign policy, the federal budget deficit, entitlement reform, defense spending, the housing crisis, public employee unions, the Davis-Bacon Act, and constitutional war powers. Straight Talk with Gary Johnson (2011)
The excerpt from that episode contains only the introduction and the beginning of the foreign intervention segment. In the introduction, Zadek describes meeting Johnson at an informal dinner sponsored by, he believes, the Reason Foundation, in Napa or Sonoma County, and hearing him speak; he describes Johnson as a two-term Governor of New Mexico and chairperson of ouramericainitiative.com. Straight Talk with Gary Johnson (2011) The excerpt does not include any statement by Johnson or Zadek about ethanol, subsidies, corn, or energy policy. The topic list is the only indication that ethanol subsidies were discussed.
Across episodes: no development shown
Two episodes touch the topic. The 2011 farming subsidies episode contains the only substantive treatment in the excerpts, all of it from Bob Zadek; the Gary Johnson episode lists ethanol subsidies among its topics but the excerpt breaks off before any discussion of them. The excerpts show no development between the earlier and later treatment, and no guest argument on ethanol from the Johnson episode is available to compare with Zadek’s monologue.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the size of ethanol subsidies, the statutory authority for them, the name of any bill or program, or the specific ethanol requirement Zadek says Obama increased. They do not give the date or venue of Gore’s admission beyond Zadek’s description of it, and they do not include any response from Gore or from the Obama administration. The Johnson episode excerpt contains no ethanol argument at all, so the guest’s position on the policy cannot be stated from these sources.