tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906854738305262612.post6989415083621528892..comments2024-01-16T13:45:18.658-06:00Comments on The North Coast: A Tragic ScamThe North Coasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14292115710427172625noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906854738305262612.post-86197031495140899832009-05-05T19:02:00.000-05:002009-05-05T19:02:00.000-05:00I agree with you.
I'm not just "unimpressed" with...I agree with you.<br /><br />I'm not just "unimpressed" with Obama's energy and transportation policies, I'm disgusted beyond words with his coddling of the auto industry. <br /><br />Obama, like so many people, equates conservation with economic death and that's why he's coddling the auto industry to the point of offering a $4500 VOUCHER towards the purchase of a new automobile. The bill should clear Congress within the next couple of days. I have no doubt that it will become law because our leadership and population alike are slaves to the fixed idea that the economy has to depend on house and auto sales. <br /><br />So we will step up our subsidies of auto transportation, instead of rolling them back as we should be doing. <br /><br />The economic analysts do not get it. What people do not realize is that we would would never have become so auto dependent were it not for the tax monies committed to subsidizing auto transport and suburban sprawl since 1920. Road enlargements, the interstate highway system, the federal housing agencies like FHA that ensured loans to people barely over age 21 back in the 50s for houses in brand new suburbs, AND of course, our extensive military commitments, are all subsidies for private auto ownership.... which would be unaffordable on any terms for about 60% of our population if they had to pay their own way. <br /><br />One subsidy begets another. The Obama people, like Bushco before them, are bankrupting the treasury, trashing the landscape, and setting us up for complete collapse by encouraging the continuance and expansion of an economy based on building suburban sprawl and automobiles. <br /><br />The orthodoxy has been so internalized by our leaders that they aren't capable of thinking of an economy that might be, uh, just a little more diversified. They and the population that elected them have too heavy an investment in the way things have been, and no one seems to be able to see that the way things have been for the past 60 years was possible only by means of federal policies backed by federal taxing authority. <br /><br />At some point, this is all going to start to unwind with ferocious velocity. We've seen the beginnings of the unraveling in the past few years. Events like the collapse of an interstate bridge barely 40 years old in Minneapolis, a dam collapse in Missouri, and the utter chaos and inability to cope on the part of local, state, and federal authorities alike in the Katrina fiasco, may seem like isolated, unrelated events, but to me, they look like the first symptoms of systems failure, indications that things aren't working anymore.The North Coasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14292115710427172625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906854738305262612.post-11280672677163793282009-05-05T12:02:00.000-05:002009-05-05T12:02:00.000-05:00Excellent post Laura! A heavy emphasis on conserva...Excellent post Laura! A heavy emphasis on conservation must be central going forward. I'd like to see a steep tax on gasoline to discourage consumption and sprawl with the revenue going toward passenger rail and making our communities more compact and walkable. You're right about the need for more nuclear (as much as I don't like it) and for calling bullshit on ethanol. <br /><br />One of the reasons I voted for Obama was my hope that he'd use his charisma and superior communication skills on selling folks on the idea of CONSERVATION. Perhaps there needs to be a crisis before he can have that converstaion. Until then color me unimpressed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com