Obama Admin Proposes $2B for Alternative Fuel Vehicles

[Raffy.Roma]

How can we discuss the merits of a government proposal without discussing where the money comes from and whether or not its the function of the government to spend this money on that subject?

As I said you can do it but in my opinion another thread should be started because it's another topic.

 

[JRP3]

I don't think that it is good to discuss a purely political matter in this forum.

In your opinion it's a purely political matter, but not in mine, or others. When anyone proposes spending money it's quite valid to talk about where it's coming from. To be very clear I support much of what Obama is doing and voted for him both times and I have no problem with people questioning how he can accomplish his goals or how programs will be paid for.

 

[Robert.Boston]

a) about my moderator's nudge: I want to make sure we don't start down the path of "how big should government be?", which would have been a logical path to follow from @kaivball's prior post.

b) re my personal view: $2B ($200m/year) is chump change in the budget, and the Obama admin proposed a deficit-neutral way of achieving it. It's a small fraction of the R&D budget imbedded in the DoD appropriations.

 

[brianman]

I want to make sure we don't start down the path of "how big should government be?"

Why? Expenditures of public funds are directly in line with that discussion topic.

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b) re my personal view: $2B ($200m/year) is chump change in the budget, and the Obama admin proposed a deficit-neutral way of achieving it. It's a small fraction of the R&D budget imbedded in the DoD appropriations.

Person 1: I only put 20c on the credit card this week.
Person 2: But you have $20,000 in debt on that card.
Person 1: But it's only 20c.
Person 2 shakes head because any follow-up discussion is apparently off-topic.

 

[neroden]

As one comment on the Yahoo article succinctly puts it, "I can't afford a $40,000 car." Model S buyers can, but we're looking at $70k+ to get a coast-to-coast capable car, which is well above the average new car price. Continued investment in basic R&D on batteries will be key to driving down the cost, and increasing the performance, of EV batteries, which will then allow a cost-effective EV alternative to the Honda Civic et al.

To put it bluntly, unless the current trends in income distribution are changed (99% of Americans have not seen an increase in real income in 30 years), most people aren't really going to be able to afford any kind of car. If we want people to be able to get anywhere, we'll have to start putting in electric trains.

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In your opinion it's a purely political matter, but not in mine, or others. When anyone proposes spending money it's quite valid to talk about where it's coming from.

While it is valid, I find it leads off into the weeds very quickly. I have a pretty solid knowledge of how the macroeconomy actually works, and under our current conditions of high unemployment, honestly the best thing to do would be for the government to simply print money in order to spend it. But whenever I mention this various people start getting hysterical and the thread quickly goes waaaay off topic.

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Thanks.

It shouldn't matter whether it's the wife or the husband that's spending us into oblivion.

Fact is that we are spending 24% of GDP when historical average revenues (in spite of dramatically different personal and income tax rates) hover around 18% of GDP.

This is, in essence, just wrong, but here is not the time and place to give a lecture on the history of government tax and spending levels.

 

[Kaivball]

This is, in essence, just wrong, but here is not the time and place to give a lecture on the history of government tax and spending levels.

If this fact is wrong I'd love for you to start a new thread.

Tax Revenues Return to Historical Average


Looking forward to your lecture attempting to refute that federal revenues average 18% of GDP over the last 60 years.

Spending substantially more than the average expected revenue explains why our children and grand children have been saddled by $17,000 billion of OUR debt.

Shameful.

 

[stopcrazypp]

My two cents. If a post talks specifically to how to pay for this SPECIFIC bill (or what kind of tech this bill should support), it's still on topic. This is true even if it is not completely apolitical. For example, it's fair game to discuss what Obama means when he says this bill will be budget neutral.

If the post talks about how we should handle the deficit in general, that is not only off topic for this thread, it's off topic for this sub-forum as it no longer has anything to do with energy/environmental policy. That kind of discussion should be in the Off Topic section. Quite frankly you can have that discussion about any one of the bills in this sub-forum.

I don't know when it started, but this topic has veered completely in that direction.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

If the post talks about how we should handle the deficit in general, that is not only off topic for this thread, it's off topic for this sub-forum as it no longer has anything to do with energy/environmental policy.

Agree 100%

 

[Robert.Boston]

[moderator's note: some posts moved to Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion]