Monday, December 10, 2007
Texas program for cleaner vehicles full of faults
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As I try to achieve my goals of smaller, less intrusive, and more efficient government, I often attempt a little humor. Alas, my too-dry—and sometimes imaginary—wit might land me a few pity votes next May. But there’s nothing funny about this post. It’s just an angry rant.
The State of Texas has funded a program to incentivize owners of cars ten years and older to trade them in for newer, less polluting models:
Motorists in the DFW, Austin and Houston areas pay $39.75 annually for their emissions inspection. The rest of Texas pays $12.50, because they aren’t in a “non-attainment area.” The extra $27.25 has been accumulating in an account somewhere, and the legislators and bureaucrats are determined to spend it in the stupidest possible way.
Their plan is to give $3,000 vouchers to anyone who 1) owns a 10+ year-old car that has failed an emission test*, and 2) is “poor.” Of course “poor” is defined as $72,390 for a family of five.
So in the State’s plan to get rid of $100 million, the punishment for pollution is doled out equally regardless of vehicle efficiency, but the rewards are heaped on the people most to blame for the problem. And for our $3,000, we’ll be lucky to get $100 worth of cleaner air—the rest will go into leather seats and premium sound systems. This is not about cleaning our air; this is about taking from those who have produced and saved, and giving it to those who haven’t.
There will certainly be some reading this post who will take advantage of this program. If you are one such person, perhaps you fancy yourself clever or even a defender of the environment. You are neither.
You are a parasite. You are an undeserving welfare recipient, and in a just society you would be stigmatized. You’re part of the problem, and you likely always will be.
A moral society is one in which people produce an abundance of goods or services that other people want, and then trade that abundance for the things that they want. It is based on freedom and property rights, and the needs of the poorest and least able are satisfied by the voluntary charity of the Righteous.
A society in which people all try to live at each other’s expense is immoral and doomed to failure.
I think we need a grass-roots effort to stop this program. But it would be pointless to go after the bureaucrats or even the legislators—they can’t be embarrassed by anything. No, the way to do it would be to go directly to car dealers and ask them to pledge not to participate in this voucher socialism. Publish the lists of dealers who do and don’t enable government stupidity on blogs and such.
*According to Scott Streater in the Star-Telegram, the requirement that the vehicle failed an emissions test was eliminated. Guess the bureaucrats realized that making sure your car fails an emissions test is pretty cheap and easy (ball peen hammer required.)
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Comments
Montgomery Sutton Verified
Vouchers for new, lower polluting cars are great. Vouchers for people who have low household incomes and hold jobs are great. However, vouchers that insure neither of those but--as you've said--help a bunch of people who can't even spell carbon dioxide by newer, shinier, hardly more eco-friendly cars is a waste of money.
If Texas politicians had even a small dose of real concern for the environment, or any real desire to meet these limits imposed upon us, they would still be giving out these vouchers -- but only for people getting very high fuel efficiency vehicles, in an effort to help offset the higher initial cost of a good low-emissions engine.
Some communist principles can be used to actually help people--which, frankly, is still more important than helping business entities--and the society as a whole. Others, like this, reek of the idiocy that gives "active government" a bad name.
It’s almost as foolish as giving people tax rebates for buying SUVs.
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Montgomery Sutton Verified
Sorry, in my own foolishness I put "by" where "buy" should be. It's still early in France, and I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet.
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Montgomery Sutton Verified
Sorry, one more amendment. I now see that they are going to be gracious enough to give people choosing to by a hybrid an additional $500 dollars. That's $5,500 less than the difference between a hybrid car and an equivalent "low-emissions" traditional engine car. It's barely even a pittance, and shows how little regard the Texas legislature actually has for cleaning up our air.
Thanks guys.
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Rawlins Gilliland Verified
For a minute, forget hybrid all-or-nothing good-and-evil Jedi warfare; The real American outrage should be that, in a time of war no less, while I have driven a car getting 40 MPH (for years),... and get not even a 'thank you' from said government (let alone a tax break),.... my sister and bro-in-law (and much of the Metroplex) received hefty tax breaks, (particularly in the early Bush years), rewarding them for buying (in my sister's case first Lexus and then Infiniti) SUVs.
PS: As we know, like all SUVs, these cars classified as a 'work' car and under said statute had lower emission standards than my Scion; that on top of it using twice the gas (on a good day). Now that's when you know the government is leading by example.
PS: The only 'work' done by my sister's car is circling vallet parking at NorthPark to catch a shoe sale at Neimans.
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Donna Chen Verified
Although I am all pro-hybrid vehicles and other fuel alternatives, I believe the discussion at hand confuses the issue of "emissions" and "fuel efficiency," two measures that though are sometimes correlated, do not directly impact the other.
All cars manufactured today meet the current EPA emissions requirements, whether they be gas guzzling SUVs or hybrid compact cars. The vehicle retirement program proposed by TCEQ is trying to accelerate the vehicle fleet turnover rate. Vehicles manufactured 10 years ago (for the most part) do not meet the current EPA emissions standards. If we can help those who cannot afford to purchase newer, lower emissions vehicles to replace their old "polluters," why not do so?
The guidelines, by the DMN, are "Participants will receive vouchers of $3,000 that they can use to buy most new vehicles that cost $25,000 or less. If participants opt to buy a hybrid, they can get a $3,500 voucher. They can also use the vouchers on used cars and trucks that are no more than two model years old."
It's a $25,000 cap, these are not going to luxury Lexus SUVs with leather seats and premium sound packages kind of vehicle replacements.
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Rawlins Gilliland Verified
I was writing about the exact national guideline tax breaks and lower emission standards that were SUV (wartime) recent. Yes, things have evolved and happily we're suddenly 'mia culpa' collectively amnesiac. But I'm not ready to dismiss the shame of the not-so-long-ago (wartime) norm so quickly. To me, that's like saying of a now faithful and loving alcoholic groom who threw up on his bride, "He gave her everything he had".
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Scott Doyle Verified
From my standpoint, these people are driving cars that are 10 years or older for a reason...they can't afford a newer one. $3k won't do anything but give them a down payment on new or 2 years used vehicles; I really don't see how this is going to help them afford car payment.
On a $15k note, 6% interest rate, 5 year financing...monthly payment is $290. Take that down to $12k on same terms and the monthly payment is reduced to $232. You're telling me that most people driving a clunker around will magically be able to afford a car b/c it's $60 less a month than what it would have been? I severely doubt dealers are going to honor trade-in value on something they're expected to send off to be destroyed, so this $3k is their only help. Take their term down to 4 years and the monthly savings is $70...but the monthly payment on the $12k jumps to $282. Suffice it to say that I doubt this class has the best credit score on average, so they're probably not going to get the most attractive rates available (6% is probably low right now, anyways - I just pulled that out of the air).
Were there any studies on the economic status of people who own cars 10 years or older in the 9 counties eligible, and what percentage of them could actually afford to upgrade even with a free $3k deposit (that comes right out of my pocket, you bastards)? I really, really would love to read 'em if so.
More importantly, what are they going to do with all of the money not utilized in this program? They seem to think it will all be utilized, but I'm obviously having my doubts. They certainly wouldn't think to give us back our money, so where's it gonna go?
And they're doing it wrong:
Mr. Averitt is confident that the $100 million in the fund is enough to get at least 40,000 old vehicles off the road in the Dallas and Houston areas.
40,000 x $3,000 = $120 million by my calculations.
11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
AnUnrepresentedVeteran Anonymous
Wow, why are republicans/conservatives so rabid about trying to keep our air clean with incentives to buy more efficient cars? I think the program should be expanded, not cut as the orginal unthinking writer wrote. It's ok to a conservative to spend a trillion dollars on a war against a country which never threatened the US or have another several trillion dollars in federal deficit. Republicans always it when our tax dollars go to war, death and destruction, but they NEVER want to spend a dime to create, build, or do anything innovative. Good god, look at Bush. He has never had one creative or intelligent thought in his corrupt and drunken life, but republicans lap at every drop of drool that falls from his mouth like thirsty, mongrel dogs. I believe, instead of using our limited resources to kill and destroy, we could be using the $30,000 every family has to pay for Bush's War on energy conservation. Why not give every family $30,000 to buy solar panels making their home virtually energy independent? Why not give every family $30,000 to buy cars that get a minimum of 45 miles to the gallon? Republicans always attack anything intelligent or innovative because they can only understand simple three word phrases like "Bring em on" or "Hang em high" or "Shock and Awe". It's too bad republicans are so anti-energy independence. It's obvious by being in love with gas guzzlers and dirty air that republicans couldn't care less about our country or our national security. Republicans actively laughted at Al Gore for saying the internal combustion engine needs to be phased out. They savagely ridiculed him, probably in the same way those with horse and carriages did about the automobile. Republicans are conservative for a reason, they are conservative with their thought, any creativity, or any real solutions. They are also very conservative with their compassion. When will they wake up and start to think?
6 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
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