Chapter Eight

"In politics, the tail can wag the dog" (180). After reading about how the larger population pays for the subsidies of the smaller population and how this affects things like elections, I got to thinking about the debates that I have heard during presidential electons. Pleasing Iowa and the two percent of the population that is farmers is very important during elections being that the Iowa caucus is the first and people pay attention to it. Most candidates run supporting ethanol, which pleases the corn farmers in Iowa in turn helping the candidate to win. Wheelan however pointed out how Ethonol isn't even proven to be better for the environment and in fact could have more harmful effects than gasoline. This example is just one of the ones used in this chapter to show how even though the majority of the country doesn't notice the few more cents taken from them used as a subsidy for the corn farmers, it does however have huge repercussions on our politics.