Welfare used to be about government cheese. Today’s it’s about
grafting thousands of dollars to rich people so as to “encourage” them to drive
around in electric cars.
Few seem to mind because electrics are the cablinasians of
the car world; affirmative action/diversity hires whose merits must not be
questioned – and their deficits never mentioned.
Well, congressional Republicans did exactly that – a startling
thing, given the GOP’s usually reliable penchant for bringing-up-the-rear
acceptance of everything Democrats enact (Obamacare, for example).
But this time, they broke ranks.
Included in the House version of the GOP’s
budget proposal (expect Senate Republicans to out the kibosh
on this) is language that would eliminate the $7,500 per electric car bribe
that’s been used much in the same way that ether is used to start an engine
that won’t. The difference being that in the case of using ether to start a
balky engine, the engine – once started – is capable of running on its own
steam.
Electric cars, of course, are not. They require a steady, never-ending IV
of ether – in the form of massive wealth transfers – which is what subsidies
are – in order to keep them running.
This fact is well-known to EV boosters, who admit that
EVs are not viable on the merits by squealing uproariously about the prospect
that the subsidies might be yanked.
This would be funny if they realized it – and if they
lacked the power to force others to . . . subsidize it.
Last week, a cohort of 22 mayors sent a letter to
members of the House and Senate conference committee working on reconciling the
tax bill, pleading with them to keep on spraying the ether into the electric
car carburetor (so to speak; electric cars don’t have carburetors
. . . these, after all, work).
From the letter:
“The increased consumer demand for electric vehicles that arose
through this tax credit has resulted in the creation of 200,000 new jobs in the
U.S. automobile industry, driven technological innovation, reduced oil
dependency, saved consumers money, and generated economic benefits.”
The ancient world equivalent of
building a Tesla . . .
The economic logic of this is . . . interesting. If the
federal government can “create jobs” in this manner – by subsidizing products
that can’t compete on the merits – why not just magic-wand unemployment away by
subsidizing, say, pyramid building? The analogy is apt in more ways than just the
one. Electric cars are to cars as pyramids are to housing. The EV does not go
far – at great expense. The pyramid houses one pharaoh – also at great expense.
Both involve a lot of trouble for not much gain – except, of
course, for the few who stand to gain from them – i.e., the rich welfare king
who drives around in his electric car and the also- rich pharaoh who lies
comfortably in his spacious pyramid. Both are tax parasites who hag-ride the
public, using the force of government authority to enable the filching.
Here’s more from mandibles of the feeders:
“Congress designed the credit this way to promote multiple
manufacturers’ investment and to allow the plug-in electric drive vehicle
manufacturers to achieve commercial-scale production and the attendant reductions
in per unit costs, while maximizing consumer options,” the Electric Drive
Transportation Association said in a separate letter to Senators Orrin Hatch
of Utah and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas.
The Electric Drive Transportation Association is, of course, a
lobby for the interests hoping to keep their rice bowls full without having to
deal with the difficulty of producing an economically viable product.
Indeed, one of the worst aspects of the massive subsidization of
electric cars is that it has encouraged those who make them to focus on
everything except practicality and economy. On the attributes,
that is, which might actually make them competitive with conventional (that is,
internal combustion-engined) cars.
It is exactly like being told you can eat anywhere you like and
don’t worry about the bill. In that case, the diner will usually choose the
ribeye over the hamburger.
Thus, we have electric cars like the Tesla – which emphasize how
stylish they are, how technologically hip they are and how
quick they are. None of which are bad things per se but they become outrages
when someone else is being made to . . . subsidize them.
In exactly the same manner that it is obnoxious to be compelled to pay for
someone else’ s ribeye with all the trimmings, while you get
the hamburger.
So there are two very good reasons for nixing the EV ether shot,
one of them moral – the other practical.
The moral reason ought to be obvious enough.
Bribing rich people (who are the only people who can afford these things, even
with the inducement of subsidies) to buy electric cars which emphasize
technological hipness, quickness and stylishness is as outrageous as using the
federal bullwhip to provide “assistance” to buyers of any other
high-performance/luxury car.
The argument that the electric high-performance/luxury car is
“clean” is as fatuous an argument as arguing that the ribeye is more nutritious
than the hamburger. And in the case of the ribeye, it is at least actually
nutritious whereas the electric car is only “clean” if you close your eye to
the source of the electricity which powers it as well as the environmental
sausage-making involved in its actual manufacture.
The practical reason for cutting off the gravy
train might be even more persuasive, though. It is simply that if EVs were
forced to compete on the merits – a dreadful concept, apparently – their
emphasis would have to be on things like (gasp) low cost, simplicity and
functionality.
EVs of that sort would, however, rapidly find buyers – for the
same reason that more hamburgers are sold each day than ribeyes.
But that may not be what’s wanted.
Possibly for the same reason that Khufu – aka Cheops, depending
on the source you go by – didn’t want the mass of Egyptians housed in
pyramids like his, either.
. . .
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