Here in Las Vegas nine days ago, President Obama, who ran on a promise of post-partisan \u201cchange,\u201d made a campaign swing in support of 23-year U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, who has spent 40 of his 70 years on the public payroll.<\/p>\n
A passage in Mr. Obama\u2019s Friday speech at UNLV seemed somewhat disconnected from most Americans\u2019 current perception of Washington and what it\u2019s doing to our economy.<\/p>\n
Mr. Obama intoned: \u201cAs I said on the campaign, and as I\u2019ve repeated many times as President, I believe the greatest generator of jobs in America is our private sector. It\u2019s our entrepreneurs and innovators, who are willing to take a chance on a good idea. … The private sector — not government — is, was, and always will be the source of America\u2019s economic success. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve cut dozens of taxes for the middle class and small businesspeople, extended loan programs to put capital in the hands of startups and worked to reduce the cost of health care for small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
I conducted an informal survey of Las Vegas small business owners, last week. Nothing fancy or even very scientific. Owners of some sandwich joints where I eat, local bookstores, places like that. None could remember any recent tax cuts or loans or \u201ccapital put in their hands\u201d by Barack Obama or the Democratic Congress. Just the opposite — they\u2019re puzzled by the persistence of the slowdown, and seriously worried more tax hikes and government mandates coming down the pike are going to mean lots more shuttered stores and fewer customers.<\/p>\n
Nor could anybody figure out how Mr. Obama has \u201creduced the cost of health care\u201d for anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur role in government, especially in difficult times like these, is to break down barriers that are standing in the way of innovation,\u201d said the President, standing in a city with an official unemployment rate of 14 percent. (It\u2019s really over 20.) \u201cIt\u2019s to provide an impetus for businesses to grow and expand. That … isn\u2019t some abstract theory. We\u2019ve seen the results.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president explained he meant the \u201cclean energy sector — an industry that will not only produce the jobs of the future, but help free America from our dependence on oil in the process. Just yesterday, I took a tour of Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Missouri … a company that just hired its 50th worker and is on its way to hiring 50 more, and that\u2019s aiming to produce 500 electric vehicles at that plant alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government \u201cinvested\u201d $32 million from the Department of Energy to cover 30 percent of the cost of creating those jobs, the president explained.<\/p>\n
No, don\u2019t bother watching your mailbox for your stock certificate, guaranteeing you a return on your \u201cinvestment\u201d should the U.S. affiliate of Smith Electric Vehicles ever turn a profit. When politicians use the word \u201cinvestment,\u201d it\u2019s more like a holdup man thanking you for \u201cinvesting\u201d in his next pipe full of crack.<\/p>\n
But if there\u2019s money to be made manufacturing and fielding electric vehicles, why is government needed?<\/p>\n
Meantime, as we contemplate how bizarre it is for President Obama to come to Nevada and brag about 50 jobs \u201ccreated\u201d — 50! — in Missouri, let us contemplate the CNW Marketing Research report \u201cDust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles From Concept to Disposal,\u201d which concludes the gas-guzzling Hummer is more \u201cenvironmental friendly\u201d than another familiar electric vehicle, the hybrid electric Prius.<\/p>\n
The Prius\u2019 battery contains nickel, you see, which is mined in Ontario, Canada. The plant that smelts this nickel is nicknamed \u201cthe Superstack\u201d because of the amount of pollution it puts out; the area for miles around is a wasteland because of acid rain and air pollution.<\/p>\n
That smelted nickel then has to travel (via container ship) to Europe to be refined, then to China to be made into \u201cnickel foam,\u201d then to Japan for assembly, and finally back to the United States. All this shipping costs a great deal, both in dollars and in pollution.<\/p>\n
The study concludes that — all production costs taken into account — the Prius costs about $3.25 per mile and is expected to last about 100,000 miles, while the Hummer costs about $1.95 per mile and is expected to last about 300,000 miles. And that\u2019s before we even consider the potential ecological damage when big electric batteries, full of exotic heavy metals, are used up and dumped.<\/p>\n
But the problem with the \u201cclean energy\u201d miracle of electric vehicles doesn\u2019t end there. When you\u2019ve run your electric car 60 or 70 miles (Smith Electric Vehicles claims \u201cup to 100\u201d) and need to \u201cplug it in\u201d for an eight-hour recharge, where does that power come from?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry, did you say \u201cout of the wall\u201d? \u201cFrom elves in hollow trees\u201d? In most of this country, that electricity comes from coal-fired or natural-gas-fired electric power plants. And a fair amount of the energy sent through the transmission lines to your recharging unit to power your Giant Golf Cart is lost in transit and in storage, meaning electric vehicles require the burning of MORE fossil fuel to power them, not less.<\/p>\n
Meantime, how much do you think the average electric car produced by Smith Motors is going to cost?<\/p>\n
In fact, Smith doesn\u2019t make private cars. The firm started in England, selling low-speed vehicles for government use in locations requiring zero local emissions, including inside nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n
And the Christian Science Monitor reported on July 8 that while \u201cA traditional FEDEX-style delivery truck might cost about $50,000, and the hybrid version about $95,000, … a plug-in or all-electric version\u201d — like Smith\u2019s — \u201ccould cost $100,000 to $130,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the extent Smith\u2019s vehicles are competitive in England it\u2019s because of another government warping of the market — the fact that electric trucks can avoid many of the taxes and fees piled on gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles, there.<\/p>\n