Is Obama Sending A Bad Signal With This?

Unfortunately, I can see this Congress loving a costly new regulation at the worst of times in an Obama statement I heard recently. It bothered me enough to look up on his website. I'd feel better if he had said "goal" and not standard.

Now, I read the other day that critics of this plan ridiculed our notion that we should use part of the money to modernize the entire fleet of federal vehicles to take advantage of state of the art fuel efficiency. This is what they call pork. You know the truth. It will not only save the government significant money over time, it will not only create manufacturing jobs for folks who are making these cars, it will set a standard for private industry to match.

Private versus public fleets aren't comparable. Businesses can't just reach into our pockets to replace a fleet. And doing so early carries considerable additional costs we can't afford right now.

Comments

[Lala]

I get sick rather quickly of overused words. "Gravitas" drove me crazy. I hated "precip." "Folks" is really getting on my nerves. It's everywhere.

Anyway, have a laugh over at http://www.whenwearequeen.com/ - she has 3 good posts up.

[HatlessHessian]

Good lord, Obama is so remarkably unintelligent. Barry Gump, indeed.

[Lisa]

I dare the new admin to buy one of those idiotic golf carts and park it on the street in Washington D.C. lets see how long it takes to get completely trashed and how far our money goes. At least with FDR we got a cool dam.

[Andrew_M_Garland]

Obama could show the world how to save money by posting the cost-benefit analysis for the new fleet of green cars. Mundane things like life-cycle costs, battery replacement costs (if they are electric vehicles), and estimated maintenance.

Also, are these large hybrid cars costing $40,000 and delivering 30 mpg, or small standard technology cars costing $24,000 that deliver 30 mpg? The primary advantage of hybrid technology is that you can power a large car and get good gas mileage, at a price. But there is always the choice of driving a small, efficient car with a lower purchase price.

[Lala]

The New York City Police Department is getting Altima hybrids =

"For the pilot, To start, the NYPD has outfitted 18 hybrids as marked patrol cars, bringing the $21,500 base cost to $30,752 per car. Another 20 are unmarked ($25,595 each), and two are disguised as yellow cabs for anticrime work ($28,600 each).

Beat cops are not generally allowed to talk to the press, but one officer posted on a blog, "The NYPD can paint 'em, slap decals and lights and siren on 'em, but that still doesn't make 'em police cars,"

http://www.examiner.com/x-1527-NY-Government-Examiner

[JustADude]

Not to mention the fact he is contributing to flooding an already overstocked market with used vehicles and depending on which ones they chose even have to add in lease cancellation penalties.