George Will exposes the arrogance and folly of Biden’s EV diktats. Two slices:
Government’s language often radiates contempt for the governed, as when the Environmental Protection Agency recently said limits on automobile emissions in model years 2027-2032 will “give drivers more clean vehicle choices.” The regulations are, of course, explicitly intended to restrict consumers’ choices by forcing manufacturers to produce fewer cars that have tailpipe emissions. Drivers will be able to choose any vehicle they want — from the “clean” category government prefers. As Henry Ford reportedly said, the Model T would be available in “any color” the customer wants, “as long as it’s black.”
The Biden administration’s costly and coercive crusade to replace internal combustion vehicles (ICVs) with electric vehicles (EVs) is disproportionate to its minuscule climate impact. The American Enterprise Institute’s Benjamin Zycher says the EPA’s own assumptions project that the new regulations will mitigate global warming by 0.023 degrees Celsius by 2100. Because the standard deviation of the Earth’s surface temperature record is 0.11 degrees Celsius, “that effect would not be detectable.”
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Winter is unkind to EVs: Cold slows the batteries’ chemical reactions. Some drivers who joined lines at charging stations with (supposedly) ample miles of remaining battery capacity had to be pushed, after long waits (high-speed chargers are slow — 30 to 60 minutes — compared with five-minute gas fill-ups), to the chargers. Hot weather, too, makes the chemical reactions less efficient.
Spring, however, is Goldilocks season for EVs — neither too hot nor too cold. And soon, perhaps, government regulations will require temperatures to be mild, always and everywhere.
Donald Devine explains how “big-government welfare crowds out beneficial social behavior.”
Other surveys show that many Americans have a low level of tax literacy. A recent survey conducted by the Tax Foundation found that “most Americans are not just unhappy with the current tax code but also do not understand it.” One commonly misunderstood aspect is how much the wealthiest Americans pay in taxes every year. In the Tax Foundation survey, 78 percent of respondents did not know the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans—but, tellingly, 65 percent of respondents said their own taxes were too high.
The most straightforward conclusion here is hardly a surprising one. Americans want someone else—preferably someone richer—to pay for the cost of government.
Here’s the good news: That’s already happening!
Bob Graboyes muses on “God, probability, time, and turpentine.”
The Acton Institute’s John Pinheiro praises profits earned in the free market.
David Henderson points out that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act reduces women’s freedom.
Juliette Sellgren talks with Matt Mitchell about socialism in Estonia.
And insofar as Biden’s opposition to the steel deal is for national security purposes, it clashes with the state of US‐Japan defense cooperation, which has been close for decades and, as stated during the visit, is planned to increase in the coming years. Indeed, Japan hosts US military personnel and Department of Defense (DOD) civilians and their families and acquires more than 90 percent of its defense imports from the US; Japanese investors have not been of concern to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) (which is currently reviewing the Nippon‐US Steel deal) since the 1980s; and Nippon Steel is no longer closely connected to the Japanese government. Twenty‐three percent of the company is owned by non‐Japanese entities.
In sum, most independent observers understand that Biden’s opposition is motivated by electoral politics—as is Donald Trump’s own opposition to the deal—and not economics or national security.
