Posted on 04/27/2019 9:27:18 AM PDT by jazusamo
Full title: Steve Forbes: Rich people don't need your money to buy electric cars -- Let's get real about EV tax credits
Americans who want to drive electric vehicles should absolutely be free to do so. But the rest of us should not be forced to subsidize their expensive, environmentally questionable choice of cars.
Liberal environmentalists have long touted electric vehicles (EVs) as an affordable, low-emission option for middle-class American families, even though the electricity used to power them is most often generated by fossil fuels and the buyers are rarely middle class. The soon-to-expire tax breaks that EV owners receive go disproportionately to upper-income Americans.
Nevertheless, EV advocates want taxpayers to continue to pay billions so that affluent drivers in coastal areas like California can receive significant tax breaks they dont need or deserve. Currently, purchasers of EVs are offered a $7,500 tax credit until the EV manufacturer sells 200,000 cars in a year, after which the credit starts to wind down. Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would extend the EV tax credit and lift the manufacturer cap. Some want it lifted indefinitely.
Aside from the economic failures that routinely result when bureaucrats pick winners and losers in industries, the problem with EV tax credits specifically is that taxpayers are being forced to subsidize vehicles for someone elses use. That often means middle-class taxpayers in the Midwest are paying for tax credits that disproportionately go to higher-income individuals in states like California or New York.
In fact, more than 50 percent of EVs sold in 2017 were sold in California. And the University of California Berkeleys Energy Institute at Haas found that Americans in the top 20 percent of income earners received on average 90 percent of the federal tax credits for EVs.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
And it took us about 4 minutes to fill the tank when we were done.
When electric vehicles can do that I'll consider one.But until then...NO THANKS!
Good question...I think it’s safe to say the vast majority support leftist politicians.
They want to kill the oil industry and be the leader with green energy. Only these rocket scientists are empty up stairs and are lucky they can go to the bathroom by themselves. They could give a rats a## about the environment, people, air water etc, its all about control
They can - a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle can do exactly that. (Though the one I link below as an example, doesn’t have quite that range.)
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/31/2019-hyundai-nexo-hydrogen-fuel-cell/
The Japanese and South Korean governments are abandoning battery electric vehicles and setting up hydrogen fueling networks for FCEVs. However, the US government and media keep pushing people towards battery electric vehicles.
If you like redistributing wealth to richer people, you should love EVs.
But if the subsidies save even one sale...it’s for the planet!
(well, not really, but I digress).
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Just because one person is a more productive member of society does this justify seizing the fruits of their labors and bestowing it on those who aren't as productive? This country is based on equality of opportunity, but the leftists and their loser supporters want it based on equality of outcome. If I work twice as hard as someone else then what moral justification is there for taking what I've earned and giving enough of it the other person so that we have the same outcome? Socialism has failed to deliver its promises EVERY time it has been tried (read William Bradford) Socialism is the philosophy of envious incompetent losers, and now I've answered my own question. We have a lot of envious incompetent losers in this country.
Electric vehicles are colossally stupid until the power grid is upgraded to support them. Until that happens they are just a “look at me” novelty for tree huggers.
Paying for “someone else’s” needs is charity. It’s a fine thing if people want to give to charitable enterprises, and there can be tax breaks.
The government should stay out of the forced charity business as much as possible, but that ship sailed long ago. Charity is now a political football and one the Democrats’ main vote getting strategies.
“They could give a rats a## about the environment, people, air water etc, its all about control...”
And status, and appearances, and also about feeling good about themselves. They’ve bought into the BS and are happy to take government grants that make it easier for them to show off.
Kill the incentives. Let the electric car industry survive on its own. It would possibly be the best incentive for companies to do it right...if it even needs to be done at all.
The government subsidized airlines at one point. It subsidizes home ownership right now. Maybe some things need subsidizing until technology can catch up otherwise the technology would never be developed. Electric cars are a good thing, especially if you live in the Central Valley of California like I do. Eventually, when electric cars are 25% of the vehicles on the road I imagine it will start to lower gasoline costs because of less demand. Many owners of electric cars are middle class. What I don’t like is that most of them are liberals environmental wackos. There are some of us who are just excited about the technology.
In Wisconsin, our new radically left governor has proposed that the state build charging stations all along the interstates. No free enterprise, no free market, no demand. Taxpayers will subsidize the building of these stations so the elite and well-connected can travel the highways wrapped in an environmentally safe cocoon in a fairly land of their own making.
Meanwhile, the state is shutting down coal fired power plants because they are “terrible” polluters and politically incorrect, conflicting with the fairy land were wind turbines - which magically do not kill birds and bats by the thousands - generate enormous power night and day for all those magical dreaming people in their self-driving electric cars.
All of this comes out of Madison (Madtown) which gives California loonies a run for their money and may well beat them.
The government should stay out of the forced charity business as much as possible, but that ship sailed long ago. Charity is now a political football and one the Democrats main vote getting strategies.
Excellent! Drives a wooden stake into the heart of today’s so called planet saving vehicles!
Where is the dead battery graveyard going to be located? Has a state been designated? Im voting for California right next to the wind farms.
When I see an EV pick up that has the towing capacity of a F450, or an EV that can haul 15 people and tow a 25 foot boat, then I’ll buy one...
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