Elon Muskian Welfare
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 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.
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