I’m typing this a few hours before the Iowa Republican Debate. By the time you read it, you might know whether Ted Cruz chose to ignore this advice.

Cruz’s opposition to ethanol subsidies is apparently a problem for him in Iowa. It shouldn’t have to be. The whole point of opposing inefficient subsidies is that if we eliminate enough of them, we can all be better off.

So what Cruz ought to do is introduce a bill eliminating a long list of subsidies, ethanol among them — together with Planned Parenthood, NPR, the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find another hundred or so — and then emphasize to Iowans that the net effect of the entire package, which takes away their ethanol subidies but also relieves their tax burden, will be to make them richer. A collateral benefit is that he can then argue that the same bill makes New Hampshirites, Nevadans and South Carolinians richer, and if he succeeds in getting the nomination, that it makes Americans generally richer.

As a general rule, I do not understand why politicians take politically risky stands without this kind of bundling. It seems like good politics, and I’m sure it’s good policy.

Ethanol and NPR are of course small potatoes. One could of course do the same sort of bundling with big issues, and politicians of course sometimes do this. But why don’t they do it with both the small stuff and the big stuff?