Congress and democratic presidential candidates seem to be discussing a minimum gas mileage law quite a bit. We need to conserve gas and cut down on global warming causing emissions.
I know I'm more laid back than most but I don't see the need to pass such a law. It has seemed to me to be quite obvious that the problem will solve itself. Oil is on the decline which means prices are on an incline. Americans have put themselves into debt to such a point that no matter how much money they make, they are living from paycheck to paycheck.
That means that when gas prices hit $4 a gallon, $5 a gallon, and on upward, people are going to start voluntarily ditching gas guzzling vehicles. If Congress wants to speed up the process, don't tell people what kind of cars they are allowed to make or buy, just add a sin tax onto gas. Raise the price of gas and you will see fuel economic car sales go through the roof.
I know, we want our cake, our frosting, a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream, on fine china, with a glass of milk, and be able to eat it too. Like your mom always said though, if you keep touching it, you're going to go blind. The more we try to make laws to force people to do what someone has deemed is "right" the more we have to make laws enforcement agencies and even more rules and regulations and in the end, the whole thing just backfires anyway.
Not that this is good for the employees but GM is laying off 3,500 people who were making trucks and SUVs. Sales are decreasing as gas prices increase. People are switching to cross-overs. Maybe those people can get jobs building cool cross-overs or maybe they'll have to switch industries to what ever market will rise with the decline of car sales.
Walking shoes?
Unfortunately, our monkey-spanking government has created tax incentives for companies to move out of the country and preferred free trade agreements that benefit workers in foreign countries.
We could stop the whole thing if we would buy American but we want our companies to pay American taxes and high salaries to people so they can buy the cheapest crap on the planet that was built in Taiwan from Wal-Mart.
To conserve gas and cut down on deadly emissions, we should pass a law that people aren't allowed to buy stuff that has to travel more than 1,000 miles to get to the retailer.