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Banning the pickup truck
Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | 21 may 09

Posted on 05/21/2009 3:57:09 AM PDT by rellimpank

The Tuesday headline was clear: "Obama's new rules will transform U.S. auto fleet."

The Associated Press picked it up from there: "Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs. Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity. The higher mileage and emissions standards set by the Obama administration on Tuesday, which begin to take effect in 2012 and are to be achieved by 2016, will transform the American car and truck fleet.

"The new rules would bring new cars and trucks sold in the United States to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon, about 10 mpg more than today's standards. Passenger cars will be required to get 39 mpg, light trucks 30 mpg. That means cars and trucks on American roads will have to become smaller, lighter and more efficient."

Eric Fedewa, vice president of global powertrain forecasting for an auto consulting firm, told The AP the changes will make pickup trucks so much more expensive that they'll be used almost exclusively for work.

Oh, heavens. We're growing faint.

The wise and powerful wizard Obama, having loaned taxpayer money to Detroit to "bail them out" -- thus avoiding simple bankruptcy, where the firms might have shed their overly costly union contracts and emerged to renewed profitability -- now simply decrees what kind of cars Detroit will make. He might as well just put Howard Waxman, Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank in the executive offices at the Big Three, in fedoras and double-breasted striped zoot suits like Ayn Rand's Wesley Mouch, Cuffy Meigs, and Emma Chalmers, and have done with it.

(Excerpt) Read more at lvrj.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 0bama; 0bamaisfailing; 4wd4me; 65grendel; atlasshrugged; autoindustry; bigteapartyjuly4; buygoldnow; buygunsnow; co2isnotpollution; democrats; drillheredrillnow; givemeliberty; globalcooling; idiocracy; ilikev8s; keepthechange; livefreeordie; newnuclearnow; obama; polarbearrugsrock; seaiceisfine; socialistblitzkrieg; takebackamerica; theoceanisntrising; time2partyagain; time4newcarcompany; usedcarsrock
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To: gunnyg
You have that right, I have written my Congressman and two Senators asking them to stop the new CAFE standards. If enough people do we can stop this madness.

Please, everyone who is concerned about this loss of Liberty and Freedom write your elected officials, ask them to keep the CAFE standards that are in place, ask them to oppose the new CAFE standards.

81 posted on 05/21/2009 4:52:09 AM PDT by 2001convSVT ("Only Property Owners that pay taxes should have the right to Vote")
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To: BobL
"Tell Americans that just about all of their cars, trucks, and SUVs will no longer be available and they’ll run out and buy the last new ones around (like light bulbs). It’s working with me. I’m about to buy a large SUV that I have absolutely no use for...but may later on, and I figure it will now keep its value a lot better than my savings."

You're right. Used vehicles are getting pricey. Car dealers have been having trouble keeping up with the demand.

You're better off buying a used car sold privately, and detailing/ cleaning it up and doing any minor repairs yourself. If the dealers and brokers do it, they demand top dollar, because they know they can get it.

82 posted on 05/21/2009 4:52:11 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: PennsylvaniaMom

Some ‘Smart Cars’ have hit the roads around me (totally useless vehicle in this terrain in the winter)...but they are frighteningly small. Like they could fit in the cargo bay of the TB...

I have seen them up here too, completely useless.


83 posted on 05/21/2009 4:53:34 AM PDT by navygal (Palin 2012, change you will be begging for.)
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To: raybbr
I don't want to lose the extra ten percent to taxes

I looked at it as losing 10% vs. losing 100%, but of course YMMV.

84 posted on 05/21/2009 4:54:29 AM PDT by Jim Noble (They are willing to kill for socialism...but not to die for it.)
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To: Beagle8U

He doesn’t “get it” because he does not have a traditional American upbringing.

I learned, early on, that this is one big wide, crazy, different nation. My parents drove us from Cleveland to LA every other year to visit relatives. And we saw this amazing, crazy, and beautiful nation.

Zero has not. And it shows.


85 posted on 05/21/2009 4:55:05 AM PDT by Daisyjane69 (GO CAVS !!!! No Cleveland championship since 1964. I'm not getting any younger!)
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To: pandoraou812
The RV business is going to suffer too. What am I supposed to pull my 30 ft travel trailer with? Shaking my head again & thinking it IS going to get much worse for us.

By the time he's through, you will be living in it, anyway, and will be one of the lucky ones.

86 posted on 05/21/2009 4:55:27 AM PDT by Gorzaloon (Roark, Architect.)
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To: PennsylvaniaMom

I wonder how many people are going to die in these tiny cars or be crippled for life....My husband needs our SUV for work. He can’t fit all his tools in a tiny car. Nor will we be able to use our travel trailer. I think it is time to say, Just Say No to Obama.


87 posted on 05/21/2009 4:57:08 AM PDT by pandoraou812 (elected officials should be required to pass drug, alcohol & dementia testing)
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To: 2001convSVT

Are these new CAFE standards subject to Congressional approval? If so, I didn’t know this, and your post is a relief to me!


88 posted on 05/21/2009 4:57:10 AM PDT by Daisyjane69 (GO CAVS !!!! No Cleveland championship since 1964. I'm not getting any younger!)
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To: 2001convSVT
I have written my Congressman and two Senators asking them to stop the new CAFE standards. If enough people do we can stop this madness.

No, you can't. At least not by writing letters.

Alea iacta est.

89 posted on 05/21/2009 4:58:27 AM PDT by Jim Noble (They are willing to kill for socialism...but not to die for it.)
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To: bmwcyle
I always laugh at the big SUV with the Obama sticker. Some I yell to at stop signs. “Hey are you going to give your SUV to OBAMA?”

They have no clue what "change" they voted for.


90 posted on 05/21/2009 4:58:32 AM PDT by maggief
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To: tcrlaf
“by making it too costly to commute in to the city from outlying areas!”

I haven't been to a city in over a year. Nothing I need that the village 15 miles away doesn't have.

91 posted on 05/21/2009 4:58:39 AM PDT by Beagle8U (Free Republic -- One stop shopping ....... It's the Conservative Super WalMart for news .)
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To: rellimpank

I was thinking,,, Obama has these government signs he made up to place at all the “work shovel” job sites to show the projects are directly responsible to him.
I think we need signs to place around the country for all the other things that are or will be directly attributed to him.
“This Terrorists Atrocity Brought to You by the Obamo Closing Gitmo Act”
“This Car Dealership Closed by the Obama Takeover of Auto Companies Act”


92 posted on 05/21/2009 4:59:01 AM PDT by freemike (Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right? --Jean-Baptiste Say)
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To: dawn53
No problem. I'm sure boats will not be allowed unless the pass the 35 mpg standard, so yours will be confiscated.

I have an x-friend that owns a MARINA in Florida.....she voted for Obama. I did have an opportunity to ask her if she thought that cap & trade and other Obama BS would negatively affect her business...she got mad at me...

Such is the logic of complete idiots.

93 posted on 05/21/2009 5:00:37 AM PDT by cbkaty (I may not always post...but I am always here......)
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To: tbpiper

Oh, that won’t happen. Like it is in the other Communists Countries, the rulers live in luxury. It is the people tha starve and suffer.

In the case of the United States, the decision to turn the reins of government to the Socialists was voluntarily made November 4,2008 by those who called themselves American.

The seeds that they sowed on that day have yet to mature and be harvested. But they will.


94 posted on 05/21/2009 5:01:25 AM PDT by sport
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To: BobL

My husband and I bought a 2009 Chrysler minivan two months ago because we knew that this kind of car probably would not be available next year and also because once the inflation from the “stimulus” bill kicks in, the cost of cars, new and used, will increase significantly.


95 posted on 05/21/2009 5:02:24 AM PDT by steadfastconservative
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To: BobL

He can give them all the fodder they want, because they’ll never use it. God forbid a Republican candidate say something other than, “I’m sure my opponent is patriotic, God-fearing, honest, devoted and a great husband, too, but his 38% tax rate is higher than my proposed 37.9% tax rate.”


96 posted on 05/21/2009 5:03:06 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Gorzaloon

I went to see if I could trade it in on a lite trailer which our SUV could easily pull. Found out it isn’t worth what I am paying on it. Travelodge went out of business in Jan. I might end up living in it...If the Acorn people don’t report I have one sitting in my driveway when they come to GPS my front door. 0 may decide I shouldn’t have a trailer & give it to somebody else. Nothing will surprise me anymore. What is shocking is that we are letting this happen to ourselves.


97 posted on 05/21/2009 5:03:20 AM PDT by pandoraou812 (elected officials should be required to pass drug, alcohol & dementia testing)
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To: rellimpank
I talked to a guy last night who was the regional dealer representative for GM. He quit his job last week. I asked him how cutting dealerships helps the manufactures. He said it does nothing at all to help them.

His opinion is that the dealers are getting screwed big time and he fully expects to see the off-shore automakers come in and pick many of these dealers up and further erode Detroit's market share.

98 posted on 05/21/2009 5:03:20 AM PDT by Ditto
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To: pandoraou812

“What am I supposed to pull my 30 ft travel trailer with?”

Silly conservative...
You aren’t supposed to even HAVE an RV. RV’s are a sign of bloated wealth, and they must be crushed.

Just think of how many elections could be won by a Democrat... err.... poor people helped with the money you waste on that thing. You just aren’t getting in to the spirirt of change we have now.

You’ll just have to be re-educated to the new way of thinking....

s/(i think)


99 posted on 05/21/2009 5:04:27 AM PDT by tcrlaf ("Hope" is the most Evil of all Evils"-Neitzsche)
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To: autumnraine; All

Whoever named this the "Smart" car certainly had a sense of humor.
100 posted on 05/21/2009 5:04:52 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA (If guns cause crime, then all of mine are defective.)
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