Killing Cars
The latest Biden initiative...
Throughout our history, federal policies have been broadly based on the desires of the American people. Elected leaders who reflected, albeit imperfectly, the wants of the average man and woman formulated policies that enjoyed popular support. No more. We have allowed a giant administrative state and a relative handful of powerful ideologues to seize control of the nation.
The desires of the American people are irrelevant.
Witness the ongoing effort to radically reshape American transportation.
Transportation within the United States for the average person is based on the use of personal automobiles. We have 4.18 million miles of road. We live overwhelmingly in geographically dispersed suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. Very few American cities have user-friendly mass transit systems.
This is not because of some insidious plot. This is because Americans want it that way. They prefer to drive personal vehicles. They enjoy the convenience and the freedom it affords them.
We are as a nation endowed with vast reserves of oil from which the gasoline which powers our cars is made. Only a little over a year ago we were energy independent. We could be again – almost overnight – if Joe Biden would get out of the way and allow the fossil fuel industry to work its magic.
Biden and his mandarins, however, have decided differently. They have decided to remake American transportation and to do it virtually overnight. They don’t care how much pain that causes or the economic impact. They began by taking steps to radically increase the price of oil.
The next step will be more direct. They will crush the automobile industry.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released new federal rules on Friday that would require new vehicles sold in the U.S. to average at least 49 miles per gallon of gasoline by 2026. This number is up from the 28 miles per gallon mark that was enacted under previous President Donald Trump.
This move will, of course, be cheered by those who believe the ice sheets are melting by the day and we are all about to die in a nationwide climate change apocalypse. The broader public will be mollified by the assertion that all this means is that the automakers will have to “tweak” some things and make their vehicle more efficient.
The federal mileage standards are an “average.” Vehicles that exceed the standard can still be made and sold, but the average mileage of vehicles produced must meet the standard. To improve the average means producing more high mileage cars and getting somebody to buy them.
High mileage cars like the Prius have been available for a long time. Any American who wants to buy one can. The problem is, though, that Americans by and large do not want them. They choose to buy something else.
So, the Biden administration is going to take that choice away from you. It is going to force manufacturers to stop producing vehicles that Americans want, and it is going to require that you buy something you do not want.
And, eventually, it is going to make it impossible for you to buy anything at all.
Non-electric cars will get progressively weaker. Engines will be smaller. Performance will be decreased.
Cars will also become more complex. They will be much more expensive to maintain. No longer will you be able to work on your own car as a means of reducing expenses.
Cars will not last as long. They will have to be replaced more often. Warranties will cost more.
The result is predictable. By 2026 the number of gasoline-powered vehicles will be radically reduced. Electric vehicles, which most people don’t want and offer a fraction of the capability and convenience of gas-powered cars will dominate the market. You will buy one anyway or you will find you cannot afford a car.
That is precisely the point. The federal government is waging war on the automobile industry. It is taking steps designed to drive personal vehicles off the market.
The rich will not care. They will always be able to afford transportation. Those few Americans who live in areas with good mass transit systems will adapt.
A great many Americans will find their quality of life dramatically reduced. They will discover they can no longer live where they want and pursue their livelihoods as they see fit. The government will have found yet another way to crush and subjugate them.
Increasingly, we find that we no longer live in a republic. Rules are made not by legislatures but by unelected bureaucrats who answer to the rich and powerful and not to us. They make decisions contrary to our desires and then they tell us to shut up and do as we are told.
You may enjoy the freedom to go where you want when you want. Enjoy it while you can. They are killing cars next.
We may not make it until then the way this administration is going but in case we do, we will have to put someone in office who can un-fiat what these idiots are doing. Say "fiat", "un-fiat", catchy name ...