[Hoot Gibson]

Government subsidies and other intervention in a free market always increases the price of products for taxpaying citizens. Sometimes, the result is higher direct costs to consumers in the form of higher retail prices (such as gasoline and utility rates), and sometimes the 50% of Americans who pay federal income taxes pick up the cost of keeping prices low for the 50% of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes. Those of us who sat in lines waiting to get gasoline and watched stations close when their supplies ran out learned that lesson the hard way.