Erika Johnsen
Classic Obama: 'I Know How to Run Your Business Better Than You Do'
8/15/2011 | Email Erika Johnsen
During a stop on his 'jobs tour' of rural America in a $1.1 million bus, President Obama lectured spoke about the need for automakers to conform to his idea of what fuel efficiency ought to be. The Hill reports:
“You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during a town hall forum in Cannon Falls, Minn.
I'd imagine that, in the split second following that statement, the thought process of any automakers in the audience probably went something like this: 'What?! Uhhh... yes, we can... oh, wait, I get it, he's making a joke to get us all to laugh and shout, 'Yes we can!' Good one, Mr. President!'
If only that were true.
“There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market. People are going to try to save money.”Obama has positioned the revival and reshaping of the auto industry as a major part of his administration’s push to improve the economy and create jobs. ...The White House unveiled first-ever fuel efficiency rules for heavy-duty trucks last week. The standards come after the administration ratcheted up fuel economy standards for cars and light-duty trucks.
The administration negotiated the standards in a series of high-stakes closed-door meetings with industry. In the end, the White House won the endorsement of major automakers and truck companies.
Obama has touted the new standards as “the single most important step we’ve ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Later Monday, Obama touted the administration’s efforts to boost electric vehicles and advanced battery technology.
There is so much FAIL going on here, I hardly know where to begin, but I'll try to proceed calmly and rationally:
-"You have got to understand the market." Translation? 'I know everything, including how to run your business more profitably and more nobly than you do.' Automakers already understand very well that "people are going to try to save money." The incentive for them to create more fuel-efficient vehicles is already there in spades, and they don't need The One to tell them so. Automakers don't churn out 'gas-guzzling' vehicles for their own twisted pleasure. And apparently, the President is a master of energy and industrial engineering, because he is confident enough that companies can meet his fuel efficiency standards cheaply and efficiently, and on his timeline.
-I can hardly believe that the Obama administration has the gall to try and create jobs. As Katie Pavlich often quips, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." The President keeps piling on the bureaucracy and regulation, yet unemployment remains stagnant. You cannot legislate your way to a good economy. Try something new, for goodness' sake, not more of the same rubbish.
-"High-stakes closed-door meetings with the industry." More transparency? An end to crony capitalism? Riiiiiiight.
-You know a fail-safe method we could employ to "reduce our dependence on foreign oil"? Drilling our own oil.
-Since President Obama so demonstrably understands free markets, businesses, engineering, and energy so well, he's in a really good position to tout the popular and well-selling electric car. Oh, wait... what's that? Americans don't want to buy your impractical, heavily-subsidized, politically-postured electric cars? Huh. That's really strange.
I'm not easily offended, but the fact that President Obama can stand up and implicitly hurl insults at The American Spirit without rousing more ire really gets my goat.
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