I believe this collection of observations on the news will interest you.
THOSE CALIFORNIA CRAZIES – As other states eliminate tax credits for buying electric cars, those liberal wackos in the California state legislature are considering a $3 billion rebate bill to subsidize the purchase of electric cars.
California is looking to have 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on their roads by 2015 and five million by 2030. The Democrat author of the bill says the bill is designed to give the car industry an “aggressive boost.”
Now get this – The state has had a tax rebate of $2,500 on fully electric vehicles since 2010, but recently scaled it back, and now bases purchases on the buyer’s income. While the new rebate has yet to be determined, it will likely be based on the buyer’s income again.
So, they plan a giveaway to electric car makers, who should have to make it on their own in free market, and unfairly establish who will get tax credits based on their income.
Even with the heavy federal and state tax rebates, subsidies for recharging infrastructure, relief from gas taxes, preferential lanes and parking spots, it is predicted that electric cars will make up just 6.7 percent of cars on our roads in 2040. Bloomberg recently indicated that without subsidies, electric cars could become “price competitive” in eight years.
I suggest all tax credits and subsidies be eliminated. Let’s see if those “tree huggers” are really serious about going electric.
“REPUBLICANS AREN’T TEAM PLAYERS,” writes Fred Barnes in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, making a point I have been discussing since the GOP took the House, the Senate and the White House last November. Barnes reminds readers how Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has his 48 of his Democrat colleagues on board, while Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) struggles to get his team together on health insurance. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Dean Heller (R-[NV) and Rand Paul (R-KY), writes Barnes, area playing politics as if it’s an individual sport, while in the Senate, only a team can win.
A TEAM WIN ON HEALTH INSURANCE could conceivably help pave the way to a stronger hold on the Senate for Republicans in the 2018 midterms. A number of Democrat senators from states that helped Donald Trump win the presidency are up for reelection – West Virginia (42), North Dakota (36), Montana (20), Indiana (19), Missouri (19), Ohio (8), Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida. The numbers in parenthesis indicates the margin of victory for Trump. In the remaining states, his victories were in the .2 to 1.2 percent range. Despite his not-so-favorable ranking, the president still has a strong hold on his base that put him in office.
MEDICAL FRAUD isn’t new, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that more than 400 people, including 56 doctors, have been charged with committing heath care fraud that generated $1.3 billion in false billings. Probably just the tip of the iceberg.
A majestic Saguaro cactus. (imgarcade,com)
OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS, some $30 million in grants over the past several years, have gone to the New York Shakespeare Festival, the one that recently featured a Julius Caesar made to look like Donald Trump, knifed to death on stage.
Here’s the latest waste of our money. The Borderlands Theater in Tucson, Arizona received a $10,000 grant to fund a series of “site responsive performances celebrating the Saguaro cactus.” Attendees sit or stand with a Saguaro for an hour in the middle of the desert to discover what the cactus can teach them. The they share that experience on social media. I’ve been looking at the Saguaro in my courtyard since I moved into my house, and the only thing it has taught me is not to get too close.
Incidentally, our elected representatives and senators ignored President Trump’s effort to zero-out funding for the NEA and NEH, and instead slightly increased spending for the projects like those above.
SCHOOL VOUCHERS – It was interesting to note the success of school vouchers reported in two states, Louisiana and Indiana. In Louisiana, where 7,100 students, nearly 90 percent of them black, attend private or religious schools, students have shown a remarkable improvement after just two years. Similar improvement was noted in Indiana, where 34,000 students use school vouchers.
The program is endorsed by President Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who believe accountability comes from parents who know better than a distant education bureaucracy as top which schools best work for their children, the Wall Street Journal recently commented.
