Gas is above $3.00 a gallon in most places. The Republican Rubber Stamp Congress spent the last half of the summer trying to cut taxes on the wealthy yet again. With the mid-term elections approaching and the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress returning from its vacation, I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about how America needs to open up more areas for oil exploration. Republicans will explain that it's getting too expensive for the average American to get to work or take their kids to school because of high gas prices and thus we should drill for more oil in more places. We won't hear much about fuel efficiency or energy conservation. CNN.com reminds us that

federal tax credits for hybrid buyers are being phased out on the most popular models.

Under a provision of the tax code, buyers of a Toyota hybrid after Sept. 30 will only qualify for half of the tax credit for which they would have previously qualified.

Tax incentives will also be cut on other hybrids after auto makers sell 60,000 of the vehicles -- a sales threshold Toyota has reached.

The tax credit on Toyota and Lexus hybrids is scheduled to drop to 25 percent in April 2007 and then be eliminated in October 2007.

Now, while the Republican Rubber Stampers in Congress tell us that we need to drill for more oil in order to make life better for the average American, I'm sure they won't be burning the midnight oil figuring out a way to make hybrids more affordable by extending the tax credits (unless there is a way to link tax credits for hybrid cars to repealing the estate tax for the likes of Donald Trump). Of course one way to make hybrids more affordable is for GM, Ford, et al to make more of them, but as we've seen over the year, imagination is just as lacking in the board rooms of Detroit as it is in Washington. I mean who would have thought that gas prices would ever rise?
posted by Idle Crank at 8/23/2006 12:51:00 AM