That sound you are hearing could very well be the founders rolling over in their graves. Congress has decided in all their wisdom to implement new MPG requirements for automakers. Who crazy are the new standards well according Mike Spector of the Wall Street Journal,
Consider the Honda Fit, a Japanese-made subcompact hatchback that's one of
the smallest cars sold in America. Its tiny four-cylinder gasoline engine
averages about 31 mpg in government tests for combined city and highway driving
-- not good enough to beat the proposed 35 mpg.
The effect of this legislation will make cars more expensive as it will cost more to develop cars that will get 35 mpg. There will also be fewer choices of alternatives to cars for consumers, as trucks and SUVs will be harder to produce. The effect will be many more small and subcompact cars.
This is just the latest in oppressive government bills that take freedom and choice out of consumers and gives the authority to the nanny state government. If there was a desire for better mileage cars the companies would make them. Look at how the prius has done. Given a choice consumers will drive the market. This is not a job for an overbearing government and just moves us further aware from the founding principles of America. We fought the Revolution for Freedom not just a new oppresive government telling us what we should want.
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Comments: 61
Some people have absolutely no faith in American ingenuity whatsoever, and are absolutely clueless about currently available technologies. While there will certainly be more people buying small cars, out of necessity to save cash for food and higher interest rates (republican hidden regressive taxation), Detroit is fully capable of getting significantly more mileage out of larger vehicles. In fact, my parents own a late model, very large Buick that gets 30 mpg right now.
The "free market," (which is a myth, btw) has had 30 years to take care of this, and has given us the Hummer instead. It's time to get realistic and aggressive about what our obsession with oil, and particularly foreign oil, has done to this nation. This is a matter of national security at this point. I have a feeling that our founders would be far more concerned about us losing our sovereignty to feed our ever-growing lust for foreign oil than us collectively working together to solve that issue.
"Laws were not meant to force social change,"
Well I can't disagree with that statement, but I have to add that I believe that many are using our laws to do exactly that, to provide penalties to those who do not concede to the wishes of the majority.
But in actuality the penalties and motivation is already in place the penalties are in the form of taxes and the motivation is in the form of tax relief.
We all know that the "rich" are greedy people uncaring of anyone but themselves (please ignore that recent gather article that shows the "richest" of this country gave 250 billion to charities in 2006, http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977187865 ) so we should be giving them tax breaks in order to get them to conform to the majority's wishes.
If you want people to buy vehicles that get good mileage give them a substantial tax break. The problem now is that those vehicles that do get over 35 MPG are mostly hybrids and are expensive. Honda just released it's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, and you can buy one and fuel it if you live in restricted areas in southern California, but for the cost of the lease on this compact car you could lease a luxury SUV.
Money motivates, give them a reason with incentives.
The automobile manufacturers always complain whenever anything might include an additional cost. They complained about seatbelts and airbags. But on the other hand when we start discussing the differences between 31 mpg and 35 mpg we are getting silly. Our goal should be to get the people who are currently driving 21 mpg to somehow get to 31 mpg. But even a slight improvement in a low mpg car is far better than a major improvement in a fuel efficient car. We need to slowly raise mpg on all types of cars consistently over time, with special emphasis on the current gas guzzlers. This will get us the most mpg bang for the buck.
They are to provide basic protections. Protect rights and saftey.
Cling to your convictions that the feds will have to pull your cold dead fingers off the wheel of your Lincoln Navigator if you like. Personally I have always driven small cars, so I am not sweating the concept of gasoline or big hulking SUVs being more expensive.
They are to provide basic protections. Protect rights and saftey."
ModernDay Publius
Aren't these "socail changes"? It seems obvious that they are, and further, that they are most necessary. Laws are meant to create cooperative changes in society that we fail to enact purely by our own self-interest. In the case of the SUV, self-interest dictates that we drive the biggest, baddest hummer, so we are not caught on the short end of the safety stick. This results in the ever-increasing total mass of the our vehicles, thus increasing the total kenetic energy of their unavoidable collisions--as well as a serious detriment to the vehicles' agility. Only by legislation can we, as a society, prevent this sort of "arms race" from happening.
A similar argument can be made about wasted gas.
Also, you seem to neglect the amazingly beneficial effect that standards have on industries. How could we have cars at all, if hadn't "standardized" which side of the road to drive on? Isn't this a law, too?
So, why the need for massive tax breaks to buy SUV's? Why can't the government just let the "free market" determine whether or not businesses determine to purchase a fleet of SUV's or hybrid vehicles?
"They are to provide basic protections. Protect rights and saftey."
ModernDay Publius
Aren't these "socail changes"?"
That's different. Those are the social change laws that he happens to agree with.
IF you could accomplish this goal without impinging upon MY right to breathe... well, then you would be correct. But you can't. In fact, most everything we do has some effect upon others in society, intended or not. Thus, society will ultimately devise some sort of check on your "rights", and restrict your wonton wrecklessness.
The same is true for emission standards and mileage. We were told over and over again that nobody could make clean burning cars that ran on unleaded gasoline and got decent mileage. Yet when push came to shove they discovered it was indeed possible.
I believe that people should be able to buy those gas hogs if they wish, but I also believe that there should be no special incentives to buy them. Isn't that so-called free market? I have to chuckle every time I see those words because I honestly believe that there are people that believe free markets can actually exist and that we have some now.
Free markets are what bring us slave-level labor camps in third world countries, child labor, no benefits, the crackdown on unions (though the unions brought some of that on themselves by acting as if they were big business) and other horrendous abuses. Free markets would also allow tons of lead and other pollutants in the water, air, and soil and other such things. The problem with the ideal of "free" markets is that there is no curb to the abuses of big business, which has proven over and over that if you give them an inch they will take a country.
Wasn't the act of forming a government for the purpose of enacting and enforcing laws forcing social change? There must have been a time at the beginning of civilization when those who thirsted for order and justice used their majority status to "force social change" on the group. Laws by their very nature force social change and that's a good thing. Otherwise, the stupid among us would believe it's ok to keep emitting carbon into the atmosphere because they don't believe in things like global warming or evolution.
No, I'm afraid you got it all wrong MD. Laws were invented to force social change. Because if we waited for the idiots among us to get it, we'd risk our very existence.
GM quit making it! 2002 is the last year model of Olds. I have owned several Olds.
and never had a problem with any of them and all got great mileage. The head of GM who made the decision to quit making Olds ought to have his head examined.
Recently they announced the winner of fuel efficiency etc vehicles. The vehicle of the year was a Chevrolet SUV. It gets 31mpg I believe.
It is as simple as that. In past wars only the selfish complained about gasoline rationing. How silly is it to complain about MPG mandates now?
If we continue as we are, we will hand our national wealth and our freedom over to the like of the Saudi Royalty, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez.
Given a choice between my daughter being forced to wear a Burka or slower acceleration, I say "Gimme the little car".
PS. I drive a Honda Civic but will not buy another because of the poor mileage.
"if you give them an inch they will take a country"
That is some fine wordplay.
We used to have to take two cars anywhere we went because not all our kids and "stuff" would fit in our "economical high mileage cars" any place, not even to visit the relatives a few miles away. Saved a lot of gas there huh? BS! I use less gas in our current SUV, er.. ah.. un-patriotic gas sucking world destroying selfish family vehicle than I used to use. What ever happened to station wagons by the way? They're called SUV's now, and they changed the shape so green people can flip you off on the road.
Not to mention today if in a fender bender, a car just a couple/few years old is "totaled" just as often as being fixed because of how they are made from the last go-round on this and the costs/value involved. Throw away society? Or light and efficient? More expensive vehicles and insurance rates too boot?
By the way, I just love my other car that can't get up the hill at over 45mph and has to have the AC shut off while doing it in 110 degrees; don't yell at me and honk, I'm being smart and efficient while I have it floored- pedal to the metal. Bet I'm getting great mileage while doing that, ya' think?
I'm for better gas mileage like all, really I am, but one size doesn't fit all. I don't think this should be a Government mandated thing to stop some imaginary car and oil company sponsored conspiracy theory and to get politicians re-elected in this time of sky falling global warming. After all, car manufacturers are just going out of their way to keep the mileage low and are holding back! We're too stupid to buy a car that gets double the mileage if a company made it, and still gave us safety, enough power, inside room, etc. C'mon, that's what competition is all about and we would buy it, and they would make it.
Frankly, this just prolongs the dependence on fossil fuels in some ways. Why buy an alternative now that I can go so far on a tank of gas? Heck, oil companies can charge more now too, we're used to paying 50 bucks(?) to "fill er up" and won't notice; profits can stay the same. Hmmm...
Can't help the somewhat excessive sarcasm, but do feel it's somewhat out of line and not the best solution by a long shot. I also think that technologies will get better as they always do in time, but not by this method. I'm happy some "feel good" about it. If this is Congress' answer (or all they can pass) to lessen reliance on fossil fuels, foreign needs for energy, less CO2 in the air, encourage domestic supplies or alternative forms of energy; we're in worse shape than I thought...
(I think I'm in a weird mood today)
Thanks, and take care.
Government can sometimes be intrusive, but our government is also important to help protect the "little people" who otherwise would be over-run by big business, which has no other interest but to make more money.
By the way, your argument is also, as Devin above points out, heavily flawed. You say laws were not meant to force social changes - yet, every single law we enact "forces" a social change of some kind! The whole point of laws is to dictate how human beings must behave under EVERY circumstance in a community.
I do not think their should be tax breaks for them. That is just a product of a tax code that needs to be reformed.
The rest of us will cheer any effort to force American car manufacturers to respond to the increasing demand for high-mileage vehicles by increasing the mpg across the board. Hey, fellas! How about a Hummer that gets 60 mpg! We'd buy it in a New York minute!
I agree both those laws are crazy also. All a part of the ever growing nanny state
Screwing the middle class and working poor in order to fatten the wallets of millionaires, of course.
"All a part of the ever growing nanny state"
This coming from one who has no problem whatsoever with creeping fascism in the form of outright violations of constitutional liberties and civil rights. Methinks you may have your priorities a bit askewed, my friend.
It just don't wash. Laws are the people expressing, and imposing, their will, through the democratic processes. That's what a "democracy" is. What you are touting is not a democratic system at all, but machiavellian plutocracy. The law, is the control mechanism for curbing anti-social behaviour. In a democratic system, that IS the general consensus of what would be best for society.
If most people feel the nation is in need of higher mileage vehicles, they have EVERY right to demand companies provide them, and that government aid in that effort through taxation and other incentives. Such does NOT interfere with peoples freedom, but simply curtails behaviour which might lead to everyone's freedom to exist, without some particular group screwing up the place.
And NO, freedom does NOT mean individuals have a right to DO whatever makes them happy, but merely to "pursue" happiness within the common environment. It's called the rule of law. Believing that a government of, by, and for the people, is a threat to those very people, is gibberish. The fact that we do not presently have such a government, changes nothing about intended purposes of the Constitution.
To quote an expert on freedom; You can't always get what you wa . . unt
"If most people feel the nation is in need of higher mileage vehicles, they have EVERY right to demand companies provide them, and that government aid in that effort through taxation and other incentives."
Our system is designed to protect the minority from the majority. If a majority of Americans wanted to throw you in jail our system is supposed to resist that urge because your rights must be protected too.
"It just don't wash. Laws are the people expressing, and imposing, their will, through the democratic processes. That's what a "democracy" is. What you are touting is not a democratic system at all, but machiavellian plutocracy. The law, is the control mechanism for curbing anti-social behaviour. In a democratic system, that IS the general consensus of what would be best for society."
We do not have a "democracy" like you describe if we were just supposed to do what everyone thought was best at the time. There would have been no need for a consitution with rights and powers. The problem with you argument is you ignore the whole history of our system. It was designed to promote freedom and resist the will of the masses. The very existence of the Senate is to prevent the tide of popular opinion from breaking through into law.
It was also designed to serve the will of the people, believe it or not.
"We do not have a "democracy" like you describe if we were just supposed to do what everyone thought was best at the time."
We have a federal republic. That means that we elect representatives to serve our will. The American public's will is to have higher mileage vehicles.
This is an absurd argument anyway. Our addiction to foreign oil has become a national security risk. When there is an issue of national security, the federal government steps in to do what's necessary to secure the nation, does it not? Do you WANT to keep selling off our nation to foreign nations?
within a framework of powers it could exericise and a protection of rights. Telling me what kind of car or truck I can buy should not be one.
"Our addiction to foreign oil has become a national security risk."
It has done not damage to us. If we faced a national emergency it would just spark more innovation. That is just a cop out to sacrifice our freedoms for the "good"
"It has done not damage to us"
This may come as something of a shock, but in a democratic system, you just get one vote on that, as well as everything else. If a clear majority does not agree, tough shit.
Is banning lead paint aggainst my liberties too?
See, there's one flaw in your logic. You think that everybody's smart. Yes, some people act inteligently, and mankind as a whole is capable of some pretty amazing things, but as a lot we're pretty stupid. Don't think so--if I recall correctly, people were buying duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from terrorist chemical attack, even though in 2001 more people died from suicide than terrorist attacks--seems they should have saved their money and bought motivational tapes instead.
Oooow, sweet. I love carefully, artistically, logically composed comments.
Uh Publius.........
Have you any idea how thick the current volumes of Automobile Regulations are? I am not talking about traffic statutes, I am speaking about laws regulating the manufacture process. There are laws that affect brakes, blinkers, emissions, seat-belts, air-bags, the blending of gasoline, the metallurgy of engine blocks, the crumple factor of bumpers and fenders, the application of paint......and on and on and on and on.
You are already being told precisely what kind of vehicle you can buy.
But let's talk about rights. What right do you have to expose my children to the consequences of economic collapse, international threat, and fanatical religious and Socialist blow-back we all know is coming because of international competition for petroleum resources?
There comes a tipping-point when "it's my right" starts impinging on the basic rights of health, prosperity and security of the entire nation.
We passed that point 8 years ago.
I understand the Libertarian impulse to allow the free-market a lot of rein, and generally that is a good idea --- but the free-market is not a suicide pact.
The fact that oil "may" get tighter should not be reason to push more government. Oil booms and busts and I am sure a bust will come along again before too long. It is this same kind of logic that led to 55 mile per hour speed limits.
Daniel- Funny you should mention lead paint.
Lets talk about lead paint. The current laws in it are so overprotective it is scary. Kids for decades played with toys with lead paint and turned out just fine. Remeber when there were kits where you could melt lead and make your own soldiers. It did no damage and now when a toy comes up with a fraction of lead paint content the media freaks. It is all a part of the dumbing down and overprotection of America. It is time to resists this socialism.
I disagree. Of course that does not mean that I embrace unfettered regulation.
Your argument appears to be based on Libertarian values, and thus exposes a glaring weakness in those values. The philosophy of Libertarianism has never accounted for the problem of Aggregate Harm.
The bedrock of Libertarianism has always been "my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins." By logical extension: shy of someone else's nose, I should have the right to swing my fist where ever I want and any impingement on my right to swing my fist is a threat to everyone else's fundamental human rights.
I and most others accept this thesis.
This is the philosophical bedrock upon which you base the claim that a person has the right to buy any car that they can afford.
But this is where you are dead wrong.
From several perspectives: be it climate change, global security or economic security, it is obvious that a person buying and driving a low-mileage car DOES impingement upon the freedom of everyone else.
This is the principle of Aggregate Harm.
I will give you a humorous but tragic example of a perfectly innocent incident where individual actions taken in aggregate caused disaster.
Several years ago, a fraternity rented a pontoon boat on Lake Powel for an afternoon of beer, brats, fishing and socializing. The boat carried a list of regulations one of which was. "No Climbing or Standing on the Rails" (obviously the product of some regulatory-mad bureaucrat).
At one point the pontoon boat skirted the shoreline and several of the boys took notice of several girls on a beach. The boys called to the girls and the girls called back. Then one of the boys took a perfectly innocent individual action that caused no danger to anyone else; he jumped up on the pontoon railing.
Then another boy joined him, and then another, and then another, and another, and another. That is when physics took over and the boat flipped – rather violently, resulting in the drowning of three boys.
Taken individually, a boy jumping on the rail caused no harm. Collectively, the same action killed three people.
The same principle of aggregate harm holds true for automobile mileage. In our global world, with India and China now consuming more petroleum than the United States, we , as a nation, can no longer afford a fleet of cars that get under 35 MPG.
Individually, a SUV getting 7 MPG causes no harm to me. However, collectively a fleet of SUV threatens my basic right to health, prosperity and liberty.
Libertarianism has always had a difficult time dealing with the word collective. It focuses so much on the rights of the individual that it has never been able to fully articulate the role of society within a Libertarian framework.
Most of the time when Libertarians hear the word "collective"; they shut down. Because of this reluctance to engage in society as a whole, the philosophy will remain marginalized.
Are you a masochist, by any chance?
Seriously, this entire discussion simply defies logic. You are, I'm quite sure, the only person in the country who WANTS to drive a gas hog, and who WANTS the US to remain shackled to an insane policy that not only funds terrorism, but also infuses those terrorists with insane hatred for us.
I shaketh my head in disbelief. I honestly thought at first that you were joking about this, but you're dead serious, and that just flat out leaves me flabbergasted. We actually have a person living in this country who is 100% in favor of lower mileage vehicles, higher gas prices, more US debt, more terrorism, and more terrorism directed at the US, not to mention the endless wars that are the natural result of such policy.
Congrats. You're a party of one.
Uhh....Pubic.....you can't protect the rights of the people if they never had them to begin with.
"The effect of this legislation will make cars more expensive as it will cost more to develop cars that will get 35 mpg."-Modern Day Pubic
EVERY NEW TECHNOLOGY IS MORE EXPENSIVE WHEN FIRST MANUFACTURED!!!!
What kind of logic is this???
Monkey one say to monkey two, "oooo..ooooo...no make fluorescent bulb because incandescent cheap...oooo...ooooo." "ooooo.....ooooo...no invent plastic because glass cheap now...ooooooo....oooo."
Pubic, you seem to grab a topic and only see the surface. how about you dig a little deeper and look at the full scope of an issue?
Just as you have a responsibility to your family, neighborhood, community, country and mankind in regards to morality and civility; so too, does the economy have a corporate responsibility to the free market system, the environment in which it operates and the individual consumer who supports it.
John S: I don't think your SUV is at risk and you are one of those for whom those vehicles are a necessity rather than a luxury. The new laws don't say that every vehicle must attain 35 MPH only that the fleet average must be that. So if they improve the SUV's mileage a little and sacrifice one of their huge gas guzzlers while improving the mileage on the smaller, more fuel efficient cars, then you shouldn't be impacted at all other than at the gas pump, of course.
We wouldn't be having this discussion at all in my not very humble opinion if corporate America had proven over time that it was meeting its civic and social responsibilities rather than wasting billions trying to find ways around doing so. Many if not most of our most common safeguards wouldn't exist today if they had not been forced on corporate America. Unleaded gas is an excellent example. Water and air safety standards, lead paint, etc. Does anyone really think that child labor would have stopped or we would have a 40 hour work week if corporations were left to their own devices? I sure don't.
I know it is really hip to howl pessimistic about "corporate America" but let's get real. It was IBM who invented paid vacation, employer paid health insurance and most of the benefits that workers now demand as "rights".
They did this at a time when unions were run by either Joseph Stalin (literally) or the mob.
As for the America in "corporate America" when is the last time you saw an ad for a Honda or Toyota that featured a low-mileage vehicle? If you have been paying attention you would notice that Toyota is pushing its gas hog The Tundra, and Honda is pushing its SUVS. At the same time, GM is pushing its high mileage flex-fuel vehicle, the Malibu.
Both Toyota and Honda joined the chorus of opposition to the new mileage requirements.
I certainly agree with the basic gist of your comment, it is a real shame that the responsible companies and corporations take such a hit in the present climate. They do still exist, though the merger/takeover syndrome is constantly eating away at their numbers. What I think we are seeing slowly unfold, is the pressure of unscrupulous "money machine" attitude which tends to create advantage in the realm, for those who simply think "bottom line". Giant conglomerations of interests and products innevitably create a survival of the . . . least concerned for workers, spirit of the law, and social/natural environments. Those that might rather be responsible "members" of the economic engine, are essentially forced to grow more "inhuman" or be overtaken by those not so hesitant.
Sensible, well enforced ground-rules seems to be the crucial ingredient to counterbalancing such corrosive elements, but surely with the power those very same unethical beasts naturally seek in the political realm, that ingredient has withered. Adding to that the last few years of veritable "free-for-all" in terms of "selling" the government and gigantic profits for the defence/energy/media Goliaths, and you end up with a very wary public.
GOT to get these freakin' neocons out of the picture, and get to work.
I am looking beyond the surface. The fact that we are moving to a nanny state and that the myth of climate change is focing socialistic changes that have not been sucessful in two decades. The founders would be ashamed that we are handing over our rights because a group of people like Al Gore that preach one thing and do another.
Why should we focus any more attention on terrorism when the threat is just as real?
"I am looking beyond the surface."
I see absolutely no evidence of that at all. You can call it ultimate truth, but it sure looks just like the stuff you happen to believe.
Don't you realize that IS the surface? It ain't God's truth, just yours.
I posit this: if raising MPG by law kills more people per year on the roads (as studies have shown), then the law is putting more value on something than those lives. What is it? Energy independence? Global warming? Oil funding terrorism, or the global industrial complex? Take your pick, but the government would be forcing less safe vehicles to be made, if the cost of making them "safe" is too high. There's also the question of "would they sell?"
It's a complex market, and right now SUV's dominate it, for whatever reason. A truly Socialist government would legislate SUV's out of existence. Of course, that's what this MPG requirement is step toward. I see it as not so much "social" change, but a direct assault upon a constitutional right to protect one's self, to the best of one's ability.
It also directly contravenes the argument that the government should make laws to save lives, like the 55 MPH speed limit. They cite surveys about how much higher the death rate is with higher MPH, but they never show the evidence about same in higher MPG vehicles.
Christopher Leavitt said an unusually sane thing: "... Every national policy has social consequences..."
Of course laws are an instrument to change individual behavior.
You can't buy sex toys in alabama, you can't watch porn in Utah, you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes, you have to raise the drinking age to get highway funding, you agitate to restrict access to abortions, you require schools to teach abstinence to get federal school dollars, ...it's a pretty long list, Mildly-Demented Publisher.
The largest case study on the use of law as a blunt weapon to force social change is the Civil Rights enactments of the 60's.
Of course, it turned the old confederacy solidly republican, but it did transform the public debate and public practice around race.
There's no direct correlation between vehicle weight and safety. SUV's are actually the least save vehicles on the road because light truck requirments for things like brakes are less that those for cars. If the government were so concerned for safety, they would require elecronic stability controls, better brakes for SUV's, etc. SUV's are both more dangerous for the driver and the other drivers on the road.