Are Tax Incentives for Hybrid Cars Good or Bad
To paraphrase the great Ted Nugent - "If you feed a deer, you mess it up!" The great corn-based bio-fuel mess, which distorts the free market by paying people to grow and do un-natural things, is a good recent example of this. Believing in the free market as I do, I see a situation where people buy what they wish to, and can afford to.
If you choose to drive a hybrid and I choose to drive an SUV, is either of us right or wrong? That greatly depends on if you get rear-ended by a semi as you drive past the gas station because you didn't need to stop, I think? Giving tax incentives to small businesses to buy vehicles over 6,000# GVW a few years back actually encouraged manufacturers to rate vehicles higher in mass to qualify them, and boosted sales! "You feed a deer - "
In the case of small car sales; if people want them and buy them, the fleet will move in that direction. If they want hybrids, the free market will produce them and the companies who do the best job will be the most successful over time. If you are doing it to be 'green' and reduce greenhouse gasses, it is a different discussion than if you are doing it to save money. I read recently that if you bought a large SUV vs a hybrid car, the time it takes to pay back the extra cost of the hybrid takes fifteen years or so to break even.
If I can buy a new pickup in CA for $10,000 that gets 20 mpg - how long does it take to spend the extra $30K or $40K on gas compared to the hybrid? For the green side - when so much of the global conversation is based upon buying, selling and trading 'carbon offsets' from African countries to meet artificial laws, who is really fooling who?
Wishing that the government would make us do things that we as free American citizens do not choose to do just seems to bother me at a patriotic level. I can still buy leaded gas at the pump down the street, if I choose to. And, I can still legally drive a car that uses it. I can drive a car with only lap belts and with no airbags. I can drive a car with mechanical brakes that has trouble stopping straight, if at all. It's a free country.
I just implore readers to at least be cautious and analyze the implications of their thoughts, words and actions - to and avoid requesting such knee-jerk legislation that in the past brought us seat belt interlocks and the like.
Oh, and feeding deer in the wild causes them to pass along respiratory diseases from being un-naturally close to each other, by the way.
