As threatened, the new CAFE standards have arrived, with the EPA muscling in on territory reserved by statute to the Transportation Department. As Marlo Lewis and I have noted repeatedly, this is an unconstitutional step on a road to economic devastation.
However, in the light of recent events, this quote in particular caught my eye:
Gloria Bergquist, vice president at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said . . . “We have a hill to climb, and it's steep, so we will need consumers to buy our fuel-efficient technologies in large numbers to meet this new national standard.”
Even with very high gas prices, Americans have been unwilling to buy fuel-efficient vehicles in the same numbers as Europeans, because they rightly regard them as less safe. When the president talks about how vehicles have not become more efficient over the past few vehicles, he is being disingenuous, because they have actually become much more efficient at providing more horsepower and more mass for the same amount of fuel. That's what consumers want and in many cases need, but that's also what makes this a particularly steep hill for the auto manufacturers to climb.
With the principle that the Federal Government can mandate that individuals purchase something now established with the Obamacare Act (although that too is unconstitutional, as my colleague Hans Bader explains), how long before we see an act of Congress aimed at forcing Americans to buy unsafe but fuel-efficient vehicles?
A chicken in every pot and a fuel-efficient car in every garage . . . or else!
This is a terrific example of the slippery slope we stepped down with the justification of requiring every American buy health insurance. The same logic that can be applied to health insurance can be applied to literally anything else, and these radical Leftist Dems are intent on doing it as much as possible. You have been warned…
There's my two cents.
I'm a gun-owning, Bible-thumping, bitter clinger conservative in the heartland. You can disagree with me if you want (you do, after all, have a right to be wrong)...just don't be rude or stupid and we'll get along just fine! :)
There's My Two Cents 
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