First, The Liberals Came For Our Cars...

With the Michigan primary earlier this week, there was a renewed focus on the auto industry, the economy, and the effects that the two have on each other. I had bookmarked this post by National Review's David Freddoso and forgot to blog about it at the time. He passes along a (rich) GM executive's warning that "the new fuel efficiency requirements imposed by Congress last month would add $6,000 to the price of an average GM vehicle by the end of the next decade..."

Foreseeing ravenous auto-loan dealers and used car salesman resulting from this horror (coming to eat Little Red Riding Hood with their fangs), he rants-

"It's not enough to thank Democrats in Congress, who wrote and passed that ludicrous energy bill — after all, what about the President who signed it? But still, remember this next time you hear a Democratic politician complaining about middle-class families that can barely scrape by — about the single mother who can't make it in this economy. Next time Hillary Clinton brings her up, I also want to hear why that single mother is now less important than a possibly-at-risk polar bear."

He refers, of course, to the energy bill that Democrats watered-down to be the liking of conservatives (taking out a provision removing oil industry tax breaks in order to pay for alternative energy, allowing the CAFE standards to be phased in through 2020, etc). And even then, after all the Democrats' compromise, it was still too horrific for conservatives.

It's always amazing how anytime any politician proposes an even remotely progressive economic policy, conservatives insist that it will destroy the economy (ie. raising the minimum wage... or raising CAFE standards for the first time since the Bee Gees were the hottest band in America). Nevermind that it's been their brilliant economic advice and policies that have us on the verge of a recession (again).

Yes, we cannot know whether these initiatives will have the desired results we need, but the status quo is more unacceptable than the unknown. And historically, these efforts are minimal at best. And, ummm, won't more efficient cars actually save families $$ in the long run?

As for the scare-tactics of the auto industry, I like what Chris at Americablog says-

"Did you know that the new environmental regulations will cost Detroit $85 billion and they're going to make you pay for all of it? Wow, I'm shaking in my boots. So instead of gradually moving in this direction decades ago when foreign car makers decided the long term future was not gas guzzlers, Detroit used political muscle with goons like Congressman Dingell to delay the inevitable making it much more expensive for Big Auto. Let's all feel sorry for the management in Detroit that made these idiotic decisions, shall we? You know, the people who has dragged the industry down and fired tens of thousands of workers...

...They made their bed, now they can go sleep in it."

But then again, I'm just some public transportation-taking idiot. What do I know?