The White House is currently in the midst of a full-court press to promote Joe Biden’s spending agenda. What that actually looks like is still a bit of a mystery as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have successfully widdled down large portions of it.
And who exactly can read and process thousands of pages of new spending between the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the unpassed “Build Back Better” bill in such a short period of time?
Still, the details of what has passed (thanks to 13 ridiculous Republicans) are now being promoted, and Biden’s messaging on that front is flopping like a fish. While Americans suffer under an inflation boom, the president is bragging about stuff like this.
This Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will for the first time ever create a true national network of charging stations for electric vehicles. That means you can charge up and drive across the country — and it’ll create thousands of jobs for electrical workers.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 17, 2021
Do you know what really gets me excited as a taxpayer? For a massive federal government to spend gobs of my money on a “national network of charging stations” that will almost exclusively be used by the rich.
“But eventually everyone will drive an electric car!” they scream. Color me extremely skeptical on exactly what eventually means in that context. Right now, we are in a multi-year shortage of silicone chips needed to produce new vehicles. Car lots are sparse and used car prices are through the roof. That is not getting elevated any time soon. Further, even in a world where that problem didn’t exist, electric vehicles are incredibly expensive. No poor person is affording one, no matter how big of a tax subsidy you hand out.
Meanwhile, those in the upper-middle-class who perhaps can afford a Tesla or GM electric vehicle still overwhelmingly prefer gas-burning cars and trucks for a variety of reasons. Time to recharge is one, but electric vehicles are also extremely expensive to maintain and aren’t practical on long road trips because of charging times.
Besides, what exactly is even the point in pushing them so heavily? Electricity doesn’t come from magic poles. It’s still produced largely by fossil fuels, which makes the entire electric car craze by the government rather misleading. Lastly, the batteries for them are produced from highly finite materials largely mined in hostile nations like China. Do we want to place our entire transportation system in the hands of the Chinese and Chinese proxies in Africa? Have we learned nothing from the current chip crisis?
I’m not against electric cars. I’m just against the government taking large sums of taxpayer money in order to force them into being a thing. The market and sufficient advancements in technology should dictate the number of electric vehicles on the road, not the president.
Really, imagine thinking this kind of thing is appealing to normal Americans who are struggling right now.
Like I said, I’m a car guy. https://t.co/zc5qkQB7bi
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 17, 2021
Your grocery bill is up double digits and you are paying twice as much for gas as a year ago, but by golly, the president is setting taxpayer money on fire because he really likes cars. The messaging here is absolutely tone-deaf, but it’s also cruel. This is a redistribution of wealth, not from the rich to the poor as Democrats so often claim, but from the poor and middle-class to the rich. At the end of the day, this infrastructure bill is by elites for elites, and it’s flopping like a fish with normal Americans.
But at least Biden got to “gun” an electric Hummer.
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