Obama hikes subsidy to wealthy electric car buyers?

what a complete moron.. Tax the rich, but give them free cars... what an idiot...

Obama is bleeding us to death with all these spending schemes and he will not quit until he has destroyed Capitalism and he can implement complete Socialism. I just wonder where he thinks he is going to get his money to keep his welfare minions under control?

Cool. I have no problem with that.

The subsidies I mind are those given to agri-biz, the resource extraction industry (that means big oil, my friends) and chemical companies.

so much for the electric car.lets go back to making a car a car.

Since electric car buyers are "Early Adopters", they should be compensated for their investment. But the subsidy should be based on sales volume. Once we reach a certain volume, the subsidy should drop until we reach our sales goal and until it drops to zero.

This is the best way to both control the cost of the subsidy and incentivize the market to adopt the new vehicles.

And it should start at about 75% of the retail sales cost. Like this chart:

Who writes this crap anyway? For one thing, the GOP is about as far from "populist" as any political body could get. They do not and never have given a damn about popular will or the rights of individuals; all they care about is corporate profits. And that is the source of their faux "anger" this time - by FINALLY starting to do something productive to get this country off of its addiction to oil, President Obama is benefitting every American - except the Board of Directors of Exxon, BP, Shell and the other oil companies that are fighting to keep us addicted to their petroleum drugs.

And the idea that the President is acting because he's trying to curry favor with auto workers is about as ludicrous as calling the GOP populists. The President saved every one of the UAW's members' jobs by successfully averting the collapse of the American auto industry that people like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were rooting for.

And in case you hadn't noticed, the President has not had "low approval ratings" for quite some time, despite every effort the Right Wing Media has made to pretend that our economic recovery is not accelerating. The Republicans can keep their eyes and ears covered, but the American people know better than to fall for another attempt to rewrite reality from a desperate conservative oligarchy.

AH He is so helpful.

Obama doubling down on a bad policy? I'm aghast! (sarcasm) >_<

It's a bad policy to finally start doing what the rest of the industrialized world has been doing for years - getting our nation off its deadly addiction to oil and fossil fuels?

The other countries haven't had success by building Chevy Volts. That's the only thing this article is about. I guess you missed that.

Not specifically, but no nation builds gas guzzlers like we do. Every manufacturer on the planet builds more efficient cars than what the bail-oout boys in Detroit build.

The only conservative answer is to incentivize the industry appropriately

Remember when Bill Clinton took oil out of the strategic reserve even when crude was selling at a historical norm of around $25 per barrel? He was supposedly an environmentally aware POTUS, but through his actions, he incentivised the buying of mega-guzzlers in the 1990's. It's not like there was a crude shortage at the time - he was simply messing with oil companies and investors to make some political points with his base. I don't like the amount of tax money that the feds use to subsidize green energy, and I don't like when they artificially push down oil price either, just to jerk some people around.

All fair comments and reasonable.

Since the Bush/Obama bail-outs I've come to believe that America will return to financial stability as soon as we end our reliance on OPEC energy sources.

No, the only thing this article is about is the continued effort by the Right Wing to attack and denigrate the President of the United States and protect the interests of corporate oligarchs no matter how much damage it does to the nation and its population. And when the bias isn't even close to subtle it's even more laughable - like calling the GOP "populists" or suggesting that the only reason the President is supporting this program is to "curry favor" with blue collar workers (the same ones who have jobs today because the President saved their industry rather than letting them all crash and burn as Romney and Santorum would have) or the bit about "low approval ratings" when we both know the President's approval ratings are in better shape with each passing day.

give the rich free cars.. no tax them more... give warren buffet a 132million dollar check in the bank bailout.. oh no tax him more... give Bill Gates $11m to build a bridge at his headquarters... oh no tax them more... block the pipeline helping buffets interests in the coal industry... oh not tax him more... pretend like warren buffet earns a higher salary than his secretary but doesnt pay as much income tax. this guy is in way over his head, he cant handle it...

did you read the article.. at all...

So, who is pandering to the rich and ultra-wealthy in America these days? Certainly aren't the Republicans.

How come Obama NEVER has to explain his actions?