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: Begging the Question

Free Campaign Suggestion on Oil

By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

Candidates have talked alot about reducing dependence on foreign oil. Much of it has to do with alternative fuel talk, which is all well and good. But why not offer to create some incentives for the auto companies. I mean serious incentives. My plan that no one will listen to or enact.

1. Set a difficult but reachable goal. Say, a car that gets 100 miles per gallon. (I know the X-Prize is already doing this.) Don't relax safety guidelines.
2. State that the auto company that creates this car and makes them available nationally gets a massive tax break. Or better yet, they don't have to pay taxes at all that year.
3. For every, oh, 100,000 or so that get sold, extend the tax break for another year. I don't know enough about realistic sales numbers to pick a good number, but it would have to be small enough to be obtainable, but big enough that the company couldn't just buy them all themselves to get the break.

This would obviously have to have a limit of 3 to 5 years or so, or be restarted with a new, higher MPG goal. These companies have really smart engineers and designers working for them. Let's put them to work on this issue. And you would have to think that domestic auto companies (and their investors) that have been struggling would jump at the chance to get a huge boost.

Full post as published by Begging the Question on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).