According to this article in the Atlantic, this is how Tim Pawlenty opened his campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2012:
“Tim Pawlenty pre-announced his official entry into the 2012 presidential race Sunday with a video promising that he’d tell the hard truths. In Des Moines Monday, the hard truth Pawlenty opened with was telling Iowans that he’d phase out ethanol subsidies, Politico’s Kendra Marr reports. The Republican said the government needs to get out ‘of the business of handing out favors and special deals’ and allow ‘the free market, not freebies’ to reign.”
I don’t know if it is just campaign rhetoric, as the article implies. I hope it’s not, as it would be both refreshing for a politician to go in guns blazing and good for policy. As my North Carolina State University colleague Michael Roberts pointed out last fall, those subsidies are little more than a transfer from the many taxpayers to the few wealthy corn farmers.
EDIT: The Wall Street Journal has more.