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12 Nov 2008 01:39 pm

Let Them Die?, Ctd.

Ezra Klein points me to an old article by Obama on the auto industry. It may be as good an indicator of his future policies as anything:

...every automobile the government purchases -- starting right now -- should be a flexible-fuel vehicle. When it becomes possible in the coming years, we should also mandate that every government car is the type of hybrid that you can plug in to an outlet and recharge.

More broadly, we should then ensure that, within a decade, every new car sold in America can run on flexible fuel. We can advance this goal by offering manufacturers a $100 tax credit for every flexible-fuel tank they install before the decade is up.

As my friend Tom Daschle details in this report, millions of people driving flexible-fuel vehicles don't even know it. The auto companies shouldn't get CAFE credit for making these cars if they don't let buyers know about them, so the entire auto industry should follow GM's lead and put a yellow gas cap on all flexible fuel vehicles, and notify consumers in writing as well.

But owning the companies or telling them how to run their businesses is not the way to do it. This is a real test for Obama: is he a market-friendly pragmatist or a knee-jerk socialist?

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