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Save the Big 3 and the environment
By JACK DOWNS
Design Editor
Heard much about greenhouse gases lately? Anybody showing off their fuel-sipping hybrid on your block?
Probably not.
The constant drumbeat of economic doom, coupled with the nosedive in gas prices, has taken the guts out of the green debate.
Sure, Obama and his friends are talking about creating jobs through new energy technologies. But the approaching depression, or maybe a new Dark Ages, doesn’t make me hopeful.
What if we could fix an immediate financial calamity — the impending collapse of GM and Chrysler — and address climate change at the same time?
Here’s my idea. Instead of propping up the automakers with billions of dollars of taxpayer money, I think the federal government should buy every American a car.
Well, maybe not every American. There are about 200 million licensed drivers in the United States. The average new car costs more than $20,000. Multiply those two numbers, and suddenly the Iraq War doesn’t look so expensive.
Instead, the government could give $10,000 car vouchers to all licensed drivers living beneath the federal poverty level; $5,000 for people earning less than $40,000 a year.
The vouchers could be staggered so they become available gradually over the next two years or so, hoping to bridge us from recession to recovery. Of course, they would have to be spent at a Ford, GM or Chrysler dealership.
Imagine 100,000 cars a month for two years, split among the Big 3. That would make the $34 billion bailout unnecessary, keep Detroit working and go a long way toward stimulating the economy.
So that’s how we can save the automakers, but what about global warming?
That’s easy. The vouchers could be used only for cars that get 36 miles per gallon or better. That would be good for the environment and by pushing the auto firms to make more fuel-efficient cars, it would be good for the automakers, too.
