
Originally Posted by
tomder55
What is even better is that given the example of the financial bailout ;the giver-ment is likely to reserve a seat in the board rooms of these corporations . What better place to secure patronage ? !!! We already saw how handily a politican can plunder from the bottom line at Freddie and Fannie. The only place I've seen politicans pocket line more effectively is at the UN .
Of course they want seats in the boardrooms, what better way to get the green cars they want? As I pointed out before, congress gave them $25 billion in September as quid pro quo to help cover the cost of meeting the new fuel efficiency mandates. Darn right they want a seat on the board, anything to gain more leverage to force their agenda and as you say to secure patronage, the cost to the public be damned.
WaPo gives another example of their thinking in calling for raising the federal gas tax
a penny a month for 48 months.
In a perfect world, we'd like to see a gas tax that was the equivalent of oil at $100 per barrel. This would send a loud-and-clear signal to drivers to continue eschewing gas guzzlers for fuel sippers and mass transit. Automakers would get the message to speed up production of motor vehicles that meet or exceed the 35 miles per gallon by 2020 mandated by Congress last year. Instead of the money going to countries that have U.S. interests at heart in the same way a dealer cares about a junkie, the revenue would stay here -- and it could all be returned to the American people in the form of tax rebates.
Yeah that's the ticket, let's intentionally double the price of oil, force Americans to take the bus or buy a $25,000 hybrid, force automakers to build cars they like and all that money we rake in we're going to return to the taxpayers. Here's a novel idea for a perfect world, how about letting us keep our money and decide how to spend it?