Will our government ever run out of BAD ideas?

...And will the press ever cover them honestly?

The recent "immigration" bill is one good example of the government thinking it HAS to do something to fix a problem. Why? Nothing has been done for years and pushing though a bad bill is not the solution. In this case doing NOTHING is better than doing ANYTHING! And this bill should be described as ANYTHING. After all, they don't like any of Bush's ideas except this one??? Come on!

But let's move on. Currrently in California, there is a push to pass legislation that would impose a $2500 tax on anyone buying certain vehicles like trucks and SUVs then turn around and give the $2500 as a rebate to people who choose fuel efficient hybrids...

Now I am all for people driving whatever they want to drive, though I would like to see one of these little cars negotiate some of the snow storms or off road terrain of the Sierras as well as an SUV. However, I am NOT for our legislators (whom we elect) making a law like this, virtually punishing people for the car choices they make in order to strong arm them into choosing something smaller... all in the name of saving the planet... while we haven't even proven that it needs our help!

In effect, they are reaching into the pocket of people whose choices they don't approve and give it to someone who makes the choices they want. (This does not just happen with automobiles, by the way!) Taxation has been used forever to influence people's decisions for better or worse.

But in this issue, set aside the global warming scenario for a moment, and take a look a the proposal on its merits. For starters, if these vehicles were such a good idea, wouldn't they be flying off the shelves? Like wide screen plasma televisions, they would be selling like hotcakes AND the prices would be coming down because every car manufacturers would be getting into the hybrid vehicle arena. However, just the opposite is true. Honda just announced the discontinuation of Accord Hybrid due to "lack of interest".

The next thought is this... who in their right mind thinks 100% of this money that goes to the government in taxes will then make it back out to reward those who buy the energy efficient cars? When has the government EVER returned 100% of the money it collects? Well, in the case of social security, you might have an argument.

But take the Lottery, for example. The original proposal was passed because the money was supposed go to the schools. As it turns out, more of the money from the lottery has gone to pay the employees who run and administer the lottery than has ever gone to benefit the schools. Though the schools are constantly complaining that they don't get enough money, nobody has suggested changing the lottery system. Why? Because these workers became state union employees who vote Democrat, for the most part. And Democrats run California... into the ground!

But I digress. Why should we believe this big car tax will be any different? What I envision is a new government bureaucracy will be created (or at the very least, a new department) to collect, account for and redistribute these new found taxes. Then the program will start running a deficit because of the overtime, holiday pay, vacations, health benefits, pension, etc. of the employees and suddenly they will need to be subsidized. But the goal has been achieved... to create another bunch of governement reliant people who will vote for the hands that feed them!!!

Mick O.