Welcome Instapundit readers: I am primarily a gun blogger. For those of you following the Gunwalker scandal, I still have lots of Gunwalker T-Shirts available. Don’t miss your chance to own the Official Shirt of the Gunwalker Scandal.
Via Instapundit, a North Carolina home was damaged in an electrical fire that started at or near the Siemens electrical vehicle charger and Chevy Volt in the garage.
Sounds bad, but that’s not what I want to talk about.
I couldn’t do $800K worth of damage if I burned down my house, my neighbors house, and the apartment building behind us, and this was just the damage from a garage fire! You can see from the videos at the link that the home is still standing.
As a reminder, Chevy Volts get a tax incentive of $7,500, and cost about $41,000. Does a person who lives in a home big enough to suffer $800,000 worth of damage really deserve $7,500 worth of our tax money just to buy an electric powered a coal powered car?
Tax credits like this merely take from those too poor to afford a coal fired white elephant and give to those that already live in mansions.
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That’s not quite fair.
It could be nuclear powered, depending on where you live…
@Larry: The 2009 percentages were
Coal 44.5%
Natural Gas 23.3%
Nuclear 20.2%
Hydro 6.8%
Other renewables 3.6%
Petroleum 1.0%
Other 0.3%
http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html
That is a great point! Personally I think anything but a flat tax is unfair, but we have to deal with electoral reality. Government shouldn’t use the tax code to socially engineer society. As with every issue, there are always reasonable exceptions. Speeding fines, no problem. “Sin Taxes” on alcohol and smokes are soft tyranny, just like direct subsidies. You know who “soft tyranny” always punishes the most? The poorest in society.
But the icky coal plant smokestacks are where THOSE PEOPLE live, not in the cool neighborhoods where the Volt drivers will be.
Congrats on the Instalanche!
And Barb loves her Gunwalker T-shirt in pink!
Lake Norman is an artificial nuclear plant cooling lake.
I live in a wealthy suburb of the Bay Area. Here, your tax dollars are subsidizing my wealthy neighbors to buy the Nissan Leaf.
Do to my occupation I get involved in home fires and losses. $800,000 sounds excessive but depending on the region and the type of home it is possible. I suspect the charger or more likely the installation of it. If the contractor did not do it correctly then he will end up paying for it. I had a home fire where new wiring in a garage was done improperly burning it and the home down and damaging two adjacent homes. That electrician will or his insurance will be paying for three properties.
As much as I like Instapundit he sure has it in for the Volt. I got to see one up close in Michigan last Christmas(I know it is politically incorrect to say that now) and I was really impressed with the car. I know one person who owns it and he loves the car. I wish GM had not taken the bailout since I have been a GM owner.
To anonymous #4 (from Anonymous #5)
So what if someone loves this car. The point is that in an age of 15 Trillion dollars of federal debt, someone with at >2 million dollar house should not by sucking $7,500 subsidy, plus all the other subsidies to get the thing designed and built. My guess is that the guy’s charging station was subsidized too.
Who gets to decide who ‘deserves’ the tax credit? You? Obama?
If the credit is available then it’s available for everybody. Perhaps we should be arguing over the existence of the credit, instead.
The indirect Subsidy for a Gas or Diesel powered vehicle comes to about 10K.
I would much rather have a 7500.00 Subsidy going to the Consumer rather than it go to a corporation in “stimulus incentives” that will use it to outsource US jobs. Or do you folks like those high quality Norinco Guns?
In the end what is different between giving them a 7500.00 tax credit for actually stimulating the economy or lowering their tax rate which has shown to not stimulate the economy?
Food for thought
AZlefty: “The indirect Subsidy for a Gas or Diesel powered vehicle comes to about 10K.”
And you base that ssertion on…. what? do tell.
“I would much rather have a 7500.00 Subsidy going to the Consumer rather than it go to a corporation in “stimulus incentives” that will use it to outsource US jobs.”
How about it go to… nobody?
“In the end what is different between giving them a 7500.00 tax credit for actually stimulating the economy or lowering their tax rate which has shown to not stimulate the economy?”
Stimulating the economy my ass- it’s classic malinvestment, directing resources toward a waste of money (a Volt) instead of an equivalent, much cheaper ICE car leaving more in-pocket money for savings or other expenditures… or in the case of our rich Lake Norman resident, spending the sdame 40 grand on a nice Mercedes-Benz.
“or lowering their tax rate which has shown to not stimulate the economy?”
Amazing the crap lefties repeat over and over untuil they believe it, simply because they want to. Grow up- no matter how hard you clap your hands Tinkerbell will NOT come back to life, and government spending does NOT stimulate the economy.; Tax cuts, however, DO.
@AZLefty: I was unfortunately busy when you commented, but Bohemond managed to say basically what I planned on saying.
There should be no subsidies. The Tea Party wants to take the Crony out of Crony “Capitalism.” The #OccupyWhatever movement wants to take the Capitalism out of Crony “Capitalism.”
When government can pick the winners and losers, then capitalism is finished, and freedom with it.
The Toyota Prius uses the same technology that GM copied (yes, the IC engine on the Volt actually powers the wheels, the only difference is the proportion of gas/electric being used at various times during the driving cycle), comes in several different models now and costs $10,000 less without any subsidy at all. (apparently a Prius based pickup truck or SUV is in the works next, if auto show concepts are any indication).
You should really be asking what sort of fool is spending $10K more on a car which is less developed and has fewer model choices?
@Thucydides: Or an even better question, if all you care about is gas mileage, get an econobox and spend the huge sums of money you save on gas.
The only problem with that theory is that if you own a Leaf or a Volt or a Prius, you can be conspicuously “green.” You can wear your “virtue” on your sleeve. If you exercise some modicum of economic sense, you just look like a penny pincher.
It seems that some people are willing to pay large sums of money to appear to “care.” I just object to them demanding my tax dollars to feed their egos.
1) Some people don’t need to be conspicuously green. Chicks love a guy in a Fiesta.
2) I plan on stealing your line about OWS’ers wanting to take the capitalism out of crony capitalism.
Good blog. I followed a link from a comment on Mish’s site http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
Please feel free to steal the line. I stole it first. I have no idea who started it.
The article only applies to the folk who don’t live in urban California. I could do $800k damage by burning down the attached garage of our 1200 sq.ft. home.
(OK; slight exaggeration – I’d have to burn down both units of the attached condo we live in to come up with $800k. Boy, would my neighbors be pissed!)