Show Me the Pork

In his weekly DC Examiner column, Tim Carney highlights a specific example of the “the conflicts of interest, ulterior motives and opportunities for corruption inherent whenever government picks winners and losers in the marketplace.” At issue here is a Missouri state ethanol mandate that stands to benefit Show Me Ethanol, a company on whose board sits…the governor’s brother. Yet, as Tim argues, this matters beyond  the Show Me State. “It’s not a Missouri phenomenon,” he notes. “Whenever government gets involved in the economy, it creates insider-trading opportunities for the well-connected” — even when policy makers act with the best of intentions.