Your $250,000 Car

This $250,000 car isn't an Italian import.

It is a plug in from Detroit that's been catching fire.  Not in terms of sales, though...only about 6,000 have sold.  It has literally been catching on fire.

The Chevy Volt, a plug in hybrid,would merely be chalked up as another "green" and Detroit automaker failure if it weren't for the fact that taxpayers have footed $250,000 per car in subsidies as the folks at the Mackinac Center recently discovered.

Proponents of subsidies like this claim that "everybody is doing it" and that it creates jobs.  But who decides which projects get subsidies?  Those with political clout, not necessarily those with the best projects at the best price, tend to win out.  This has been a halmark of the Obama administration.  Decisions on investment in emerging technology are best left to the market where decisions are made most efficiently and, in sharp contrast to the use of taxpayer subsidized "investments," made willfully.

Politically directed investment is dangerous, as demonstrated by the Volt and the Solyndra fiasco.  It is also morally wrong.  Much like the Cash for Clunkers failure, the Volt subsidy is essentially a wealth transfer from the lower end of the income spectrum to the higher end.

Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize new kinds of electric cars any more than they should be asked to bankroll electric yachts or helicopters.