Me too. I think the solution is to take whatever funds Nebraska would have gotten and provide them directly to the Nebraskans in need. This would remove the conservative Nebraskan government's ability to misapropriate those funds. We can solve a lot of problems at once by removing conservatives from the equation.

Sure, some of the funds would need to be spent developing distribution infrastructure, but at least the money wouldn't be stolen by the local conservatives. It would actually go to the Nebraskans in need.

Other states could offer relocation benefits to Nebraskans who are only there because moving is expensive. Let those states take a piece of the federal aid that would have gone to Nebraska proportional to the number of its residents they've taken in that year. Maybe for a number of years after too but it'd take someone more math/economics inclined than me to say how much or how long. Let them have the decrepit, backwards, rotting Republican utopia they dream of without the hostages.

It won't happen and there are tons of flaws with the idea. Still, I enjoy the thought of a world where this would have consequences on somebody other than the people directly harmed by these bad policies and decisions.

Yeah that's why I conflated the two.

Plus, creating ethanol from corn uses ridiculous amounts of energy and groundwater.