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"AND Put on a REBATABLE tax per gallon of gas to influence CHOICE"
I'd agree with you there, but I think you've missed the logic. The problem is that the car makers will lag, not lead, because they serve the "old" market not the future one. Buyers who want to buy a high mileage high quality car will pretty much find they can't buy one--because the makers haven't made one, because the market hasn't demanded one. The classic "chicken and the egg" paradox.
Government carrots and sticks can break that paradox and ensure that cars are made and a market is served.
Ideally, carrots and sticks will both be applied but let's face it, gummint ain't that sharp. The rubes, excuse me, mass market, still want 8000# crossovers and trucks and 300+hp, whether they need it or not. And I think we've all seen and heard families with three Landrovers and a Hummer complaining bitterly that they can't afford $4.50 gasoline--but they wouldn't dare to buy cars that cost less than $50,000 and they prefer to waste money leasing them and being conspicuous consumers.
Conspicuous consumption drives the market way more than you might give it credit for. Folks won't fold, unless someone gut-punches them to give 'em a little help with that first bend.
Of course, the entire car culture and the logic of "live here, work two hours away, no way to get ther ebut drive" needs a good re-examination too. But that's something only a real sharp gummint would look at--and way more dangerous than doing a bandaid fix like this one.
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"every assertion that there is global warming has been disproved."
Quite to the contrary, every record shows that the earth's climate has always been in flux and that right now, we're actually way overdue for an ice age. Global warming, whether it is humanly caused or simply part of the larger cycles, may either save us or kill us and anyone who argues that we can ignore this part of our environment, rather than trying to understand it, is simply a lemming going over the cliff.
This planet gets hot enough to kill off all human civilization. And cold enough to do the same. Doesn't matter WHY that happens, if we're not ahead of the curve, it will kill us off. Just like waking up and finding six inches of water over the bilge--you either pay some attention to it, or you deserve to drown.
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