Chicken wings for Superbowl more expensive due to government policy

Feb. 2, 2013

You’re getting ready for Superbowl Sunday and head to the grocery store to get some chicken wings, a traditional football food, and see that prices are not what they used to be. It isn’t because of simple inflation, it’s because the White House pushed for policies that made chicken much more expensive for farmers to produce.

The National Chicken Council has announced that chicken meat prices are rising quickly due to Obama administration policies requiring up to 40% of the corn food supply to be turned into fuel for cars.

The White House pushed for E15, a gasoline mixture that requires much more corn-based ethanol in gasoline. Unfortunately, corn is also used to feed chickens. By creating competition between food producers and fuel refiners, the cost of corn has risen to a point that major chicken farmers could not afford to produce as many chickens. Supply-demand – same demand, decreased supply = chicken costs more.

What’s worse is that the new E15 fuel causes major issues with cars’ fuel systems. The increased ethanol turns into a system-fouling gelatinous mess. Fuel pumps, hoses and other components expand, gum up or otherwise become inoperable due to ethanol’s inherent instability. Enjoy that tow truck bill after sitting on the highway for hours…

Naive energy policies are not only causing Superbowl Sunday celebrations to cost much more than they should, but will likely cost many Americans to pay car repair bills they were not expecting.

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