Actually, the market is determining what crops are being grown. The farmers, just as any business man/woman is going to producre what makes them a living. For years the price of wheat, cattle, hogs, corn, soybeans, cotton and every other crop raised by farmers has been cheap. It has always been the middle man and speculators who got rich off of the farmer. The government got into the farmers business years ago dictating what they could grow and how much. I remember many years when my family had to tear out wheat because the government determined it had been over planted. How many other small business have so much government regulations as the American farmer?

raise taxes on the drilling leases
— I’m not big on extra taxes on oil companies because they will just pass that on to the consumer. I am (as well as the Dem party) all for investigating these oil companies to see why they are making not just record profit, but grossly massive crazy profits while the average American is struggling and a gallon of gas has increased.

they have done nothing but drive up the price of fuel
On January 15, 2001, just before Bush’s first inauguration, the average price of gasoline was $1.46 a gallon. What is it now? 3.75? You want to blame that on Democrats? They’ve been in control of Congress (barely) for just under 2 years.

Eric, you need to observe and read for yourself and not just take what the Republican party is telling you. A Dem congress and white house would not mean $8-$9 per gallon. What is happening RIGHT NOW is what would cause that.

This is the truth,

“The democrats tell everybody what they want to hear, but don’t deliver on what they said. Like in the 2006 election they promised to bring down energy prices, but the prices skyrocketed instead.”

Joe they promised us one thing, but what did we get. $4.00 dollar gas. Why would you tell me to vote for those guys.

They block most bills for drilling, raise taxes on the drilling leases, they have done nothing but drive up the price of fuel. If people don’t see this, A democrat House, and democrat Senate and Democrat White House will surely mean fuel prices like they have England or Norway $8-$9 dollars a gallon. The socialized health care, baby bonds, and all their other expense plans will be funded with outrageous fuel taxes.

Your right Joe that oil is the biggest problem in the increase in food prices, and it obviously it needs to be addressed. However, ethanol subsidies are a factor in increased food prices too and since ethanol’s promise lays in other areas besides corn it makes this subsidy terribly inefficient.

I grew up on a farm where my family raised wheat and cattle. We didn’t raise corn, but there is a lot of grown in my part of the country. Farmers are now getting blamed for the high costs of food in your grocery stores. The subsidized corn ethanol is not the reason for the high cost of food, but the high cost of gas! Farmer have to use desil to run their farm machinery as do the truckers who haul it across the country.
For the first time in years the farmer is making some money and everyone is pissed off about that. No one seems to mind that the oil and gas industry are getting filty rich and subsidized, but damn those farmers who put their money right back into our economy. They buy John Deere, International Harverster machinery, fertlizer, seed for planting, Chevey and Ford trucks etc. And yet we would rather a Shiek in Saudia Arabia be able to build another palace or buy another AirBus airplane. Why does the American public find so much distain with the American farmer, who works unbelivable long, hard hours 12 months a year, seven day a week to produce the finest food in the world?

If you believe all that, then VOTE DEMOCRAT!

They are the ones that will help what you are talking about. The GOP have made all that WORSE over the last 8 years!

People like honesty, and straight talk

Let’s see McCain on Ethanol…

Source
McCain has argued that government support for ethanol actually raises gasoline prices. He has claimed ethanol does nothing to make the U.S. more energy independent. He has even questioned the science behind making fuel from corn - contending that ethanol provides less energy than the fossil fuels consumed to produce it.
…
For a politician like McCain, the stakes go far beyond a little name-calling. When McCain ran for president in 1999 and 2000, he barely campaigned in Iowa, knowing that his anti-ethanol stance wouldn’t cut it in corn country.
Four years later, McCain hadn’t changed his tune. “Ethanol is a product that would not exist if Congress didn’t create an artificial market for it. No one would be willing to buy it,” McCain said in November 2003. “Yet thanks to agricultural subsidies and ethanol producer subsidies, it is now a very big business - tens of billions of dollars that have enriched a handful of corporate interests - primarily one big corporation, ADM. Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality.”
Even the most slippery politician would have a tough time wriggling away from a statement as unequivocal as that one, yet McCain’s Straight Talk Express has been taking some audacious detours during recent trips to Iowa.
In a flip-flop so absurd it’ll be a wonder if it doesn’t get lampooned by late-night comedians - not to mention opponents’ negative ads - McCain is now proclaiming himself a “strong” ethanol supporter.
“I support ethanol and I think it is a vital, a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects,” he said in an August speech in Grinnell, Iowa, as reported by the Associated Press.
“Well, at least now we know he’s serious about running for president,” quips Brown University presidential politics expert Darrell West, upon being told of McCain’s ethanol about-face.

His idea of “Straight Talk” sure has a lot of curves to it.