What if Congress passed a mandate forcing people to buy Chevy Volts?
Getting from the current 35 mpg CAFE standard to 54.5 can be achieved by such expedients as making air conditioning systems work more efficiently. We have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to anybody who thinks that’s even remotely realistic. There is one primary method of increasing fuel economy — weight reduction. That in turn means automakers will have to use much more exotic materials, including especially the petroleum-processing byproduct known as “plastic.” But using more plastic will make it much more difficult to satisfy current federal safety standards. The bottom-line will be much more expensive vehicles and dramatically fewer kinds of vehicles.
The average price of a new vehicle will go up at least $3,200, according to NHTSA, but experts outside government such as the National Automobile Dealers Association say the cost will be substantially higher. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that there will be no vehicles costing $15,000 or less, the segment of the market that college students and low-income consumers depend upon. Altogether, an estimated seven million buyers will be forced out of the market for new cars.
Blowback
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Can you please rephrase that? I’m not following your point..?
Are you saying that Gingrich’s support of the mandate is better than Romney’s support because Romney’s happened to get passed?
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 7:08 PM
Ummm, hold it. What can you get for that nowadays anyway?
Hey, no problem. To extend car mileage, we can always ban car heaters and air conditioners.
petefrt on February 6, 2012 at 7:10 PM
Yes, because Romney had the burden of responsibility on his shoulders when he pushed for the bill and when he signed the bill. Ultimate responsibility. Nothing says that if presented with the same situation that Newt would ever have signed the bill, once the responsibility was laid on his shoulders, and looking at his action while in power, I would argue much argues he never would have signed it. it is a nice thing to dream about, no one worrying about medical care, it is another thing to try and make utopia on Earth function.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 7:15 PM
How much does my childs safety seat cost in terms of MPG I wonder. Those airbags have to be a drag on economy. Brake lights, bah, who needs em. Windshields? Make do with clearish plastic film.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 7:18 PM
Really? Honestly I don’t know what to say to this. I’m not sure which is worse; taking Gingrich at his word and believing that he would support in executive office what he had supported in other capacities for upwards of two decades, or believing that Gingrich is so shallow as to be incapable of staking out positions that he’s actually willing to, you know, act on when elected.
Again, I’m not saying Romney’s better on this particular issue – he’s not. But I don’t think Gingrich or his supporters are in any position to leverage this against Romney.
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 7:22 PM
Buying more efficient cars has always been an option, but the hypocrite democrat S&M crowd seems to get extreme pleasure out of being beaten into submission so they can worship their masters for teaching them how to think correctly. Freedom? Bah! Who needs it!
cntrlfrk on February 6, 2012 at 7:29 PM
Romney passed, and openly brags about his Mandate. Find me where Gingrich passed legislation containing mandated healthcare, and then goes on to brag about it.
portlandon on February 6, 2012 at 7:38 PM
1 gallon of gasoline is about 1.3×10^8 joules of energy.
You can’t get around something like that…there is only so much energy available per gallon.
Average efficiency of gallon of gas in a car motor is about 35%. The rest is pretty much lost has heat.
So, if we could capture the heat and convert it to usable energy we might gain a few points.
But the point is you can’t get more out of a system than is available. So asking for better mileage reaches a point when an extra percentage improvement increases cost out of proportion.
They might as well mandate 1,000MPG since it is about as likely a result.
ProfShadow on February 6, 2012 at 7:42 PM
Comon dude. This is blatant hair splitting, and you’re usually better than that. If you assume Gingrich doesn’t know his position well enough to stick to it in an executive capacity, how do you know he will pass things you want to see passed? What if he changes his mind on those too, as you assume he would have regarding the mandate?
He co-sponsored the fairness doctrine legislation; what makes you think he would blink on the mandate he supported for twenty years? Freedom of the press is explicitly guaranteed in the first amendment…
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 7:43 PM
In case you were wondering what the car with the size, performance, utility, and safety that suits your needs is like.
Transpo on February 6, 2012 at 7:51 PM
Oh, I’m bad at the internet. That’s a NYT article on GM’s EN-V.
Transpo on February 6, 2012 at 7:52 PM
What if congress passed a budget.That is their job after all.
Tommy_G on February 6, 2012 at 7:55 PM
Past actions shows he produces conservative outcomes in office. Did he make mistakes in the past, sure did. Did he admit they were mistakes, as far as I know most of them he has. But, here is the kicker to it all. Newt plays what is called an 80% game. If the legislation cannot get an 80% approval from the people or legislature, it is not generally pursued. It is one of the reasons why they said he was irratic. he would push for legislation, if it came back with only tepid 45/55% support, he would ditch it in favor of something else. Working on getting the higher level of support before brining it back. How else do you think he got most of the contract passed and much of it signed into law only having the House as the driver? That is how we can know he would not have passed a mandate, because once it hit the skids with public opinion, he would kill the drive for it.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 7:56 PM
What if cutting spending “hits the skids”? Budget cuts are not always popular, particularly with those they affect. Doesn’t mean we don’t need to do it. What if scrapping Obamacare hits the skids (some elements are popular)? or reforming entitlements (remember, that stab wound in Paul Ryan’s back matches Newt’s knife).
This is not a very convincing argument for Gingrich.
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 8:05 PM
He talks to the people. If he forces it down out throats, do you think he would be in office the next go around. You take the message to the people, you convince them of the need, get them to pressure the congress. We are a republic you know. Representative government that represents us and protects the rights of the majority.
I guess what you would rather have is King Romney, able to make decrees that force us into what is good for us? I can see that being popular for about, well, I lied, I cannot see that being popular for even a nanosecond.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 8:09 PM
I remember. Newt was way too kind to Ryan in my view. Seriously, the Ryan plan balances the budget for the first time right around the time that every last person in congress is already dead and buried, or on their second rejuvination process? You call that a plan? Red tape and debt as far as the eye can see? You know what that does? That destroyed any hope we ever had of actually confronting the deficit spending. Well, hell even the super conservative amazingly bright and articulate Ryan says we cannot balance the budget for 40 years or more. Even if implemented, it would be hard to see the benefit, as no future congress is bound by any previous congress.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 8:13 PM
That strawman is starting to look like my dog after Obama got elected.
Were Governor Walker’s reforms popular at the time? But now his state is much better off for them.
Why is it that, for the things you want to see passed, Gingrich would “take the argument to the people”, but for things you don’t want like the mandate, Gingrich would back off, not take the argument to the people, and reverse course? It seems inconsistent…
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 8:19 PM
That wasn’t his criticism. Gingrich called it “right-wing social engineering”. It had nothing to do with the cuts not being big enough. And if that were the case, where is the deeper cutting plan that Gingrich supports?
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 8:24 PM
“I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”
-Gingrich, with regard to Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform proposal which would have allowed for voluntary privatized alternatives.
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 8:31 PM
Yeah I know, Newt was WAY TOO KIND. It was not right wing social engineering. At best it was left of center left social engineering masquerading as conservative policy proposal. How many point demerit should we give Newt for having understated significantly how f^cked a proposal Paul Ryan’s plan is? 20? 200? 5? Should we give him bonuses for having not actually gone nuclear on Ryan as Ryan deserved? Ryan has poison pilled any future efforts at balancing our budget, because the left can always argue, but even under your true conservative Paul Ryan we would still be running budget deficits, so you guys are being draconian in your cuts!
We should have stuck with balanced budget amendment with some level of cap on total federal spending outside of war. But noooo, we had to give the democrats the perfect foil to riposte our every effort to bring fiscal sanity to the nations finances. Romney sure as hell is not going to balance any federal budget. he will certain tweak things so it appears as if we are headed towards balance, somewhere, out there, way way way the hell out there. But balance?
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 8:35 PM
Now look at the quote in total. He says impose, kind of like how the democrats did it. Remember how I told you how Newt works an 80% game, where he gets 80% of the people to agree with the changes. Does Ryan get 50%? 40%? 60%? 80%? No idea.
It requires bringing the people to the table and getting them to agree to the changes. like 4/5 and 5/4 supreme court dicisions, getting 55% support leaves many people without a voice.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 8:41 PM
That’s fine, but it doesn’t address the point. Gingrich called it radical change from the right – i.e. it cut too much, in his estimation. You’re position is not shared by Newt Gingrich. He thinks Ryan was too “radical”. I cannot imagine what he would say about you.
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 8:43 PM
It is hard to find a representative for 300,000,000 people. I just cannot fathom Romney being one for me. I can see newt supporting the important aspects for me. Paul scares me on foriegn issues. Santorum, well, he needs a voice people listen to in my estimation, or maybe I am unusual in that he talks and I just cannot hear what he is saying. I think Palin would be my 95% candidate. Bachmann was cool enough for me. Perry was almost there, but I think 4 or 8 years will give him a massive amount of maturing to his benefit.
The other big names out there, like Christie is not conservative on more than a few points. Jindal is not experienced enough and I have taken the time to review him closely. Ryan, well, you read my rant on him, nice enough guy, is a conservative, but his plan just totally destroyed the concept of balanced budgets. Rubio has not impressed me yet, as West has not either. Maybe I should have lived in Florida longer to have picked up nuances in how they speak, but they do not give me strong feelings when they talk conservative issues.
Gingrich I can live with, I pretty much know everything that I need to know to understand this. I mean, unless he did something ilegal and it comes out, he has my support.
astonerii on February 6, 2012 at 8:58 PM
Ok, that’s a reasonable position. I don’t really like either Gingrich or Romney but I dislike Gingrich more. It just strikes me as disingenuous when people hit Romney on stuff that Gingrich has similar problems with. Not that Romney shouldn’t be called on this stuff, but those things are at best a wash, or a reason to support Santorum or Paul (who both have their problems, but Santorum much more so IMHO).
thirtyandseven on February 6, 2012 at 9:14 PM
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