When I was young – before cable television, before computers, before DVDs and before the Internet – we read books and worked puzzles. One of the popular things was books that contained pages of numbered dots and hints of what the picture would be once you connected the dots. We would look at the dots and guess what the picture would be and then connect the dots. Of course, the picture would be crude, but an image would be formed.
You never see those puzzles anymore, but the saying “connect the dots” is still used to express the process of looking at something and understanding how the image comes together as the dots are connected.
As I read about events in Washington, sometimes I wonder if anyone there ever played “connect the dots.”
This week, Senator Debbie Stabenow, (D-Mich.), proposed legislation that would give car purchasers a $7,500 cash rebate from the government for the purchase of an electric vehicle like the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. She stated, “These vehicles represent the jobs of the future, and the more that are sold, the more Michigan jobs will be created.” The bill follows the White House’s plan to have one million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015.
Senator Stabenow’s legislation also contains a provision that provides businesses that invest in electric trucks a $15,000 to $100,000 tax credit, dependent upon the size of the truck.
Senator Stabenow states, “This bill provides a tremendous economic potential that will allow Michigan innovation to continue to out-compete the world and create new jobs here.”
And I always thought that out-competing meant to provide a better product at a lower cost. I guess that doesn’t apply in Michigan anymore, and all that is really important now is a large government subsidy that promotes the sale of certain vehicles with our tax dollars. In essence, Senator Stabenow’s bill would take our tax dollars from the South and use them to create thousands of jobs in Michigan. In fact, she is right – more cars sold mean more Michigan jobs created and more of our taxes being sent to Michigan.
Where does the fuel come from to power these new, modern subsidized cars and trucks? As the senator from Michigan and the White House conjure up ways to promote Michigan jobs through subsidies, the EPA plots to close down coal-fired generation plants that provide about 50 percent of the country’s electricity. If those plants are closed as advocated by environmental groups and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, there will not be sufficient electric power to provide electric service as we know it today, much less power a million plug-in electric cars and trucks. Have Senator Stabenow or the White House connected those dots?
Occasionally, when we were doing those connect the dot puzzles, something would happen and we would lose our way, get out of sequence and the picture would make no sense at all. I still remember the frustration and confusion about what went wrong. It is obvious that Senator Stabenow doesn’t know how to connect the dots and make a picture, unless of course that picture is using tax dollars to create jobs for people that can vote for her.
Maybe she knows how to connect the dots after all.
Gary Smith, President & CEO
