During the Presidential campaign on 1992, team Clinton/Gore got a lot of mileage out of the phrase, “It’s the economy stupid.” We were at the time at the tail end of a very mild recession, which of course was reported by the press as financial Armageddon, since there was a Republican President in the White House. By the time the election had happened, the recession had already been over for 6 months. Then, just as now, the mistaken belief had permeated our national consciousness that somehow, tax rates were the only thing which need be considered when discussing economic issues. Bush it seems, had broken the rules of economic good sense when he signed onto a compromise accepting a nickle increase in taxation on gasoline. The deal he signed agreed to the increase in gasoline taxes in exchange for spending cuts, which of course never materialized, and to pass a budget in order to end a government shutdown. He was praised by the media and Democrats alike for accepting the deal, and even had the editorial staff at the NYT write a flowery piece asking if George H.W. Bush might have been one of the great Presidents in our nation’s history. All it took to become a campaign slogan to be used against him in the very next election was about 3 weeks. The issue of course was a deflection, which resulted from a deal which was designed as a political trap. (For anyone who doubts that this was a political trap, James Carville has already admitted as such, down to the very details of staging the budget crisis of 1990 for the express purpose of forcing Bush 41 into the deal. Carville’s job in the Clinton White House was orchestrating these types of strategies.)

Today’s deflection was the silly pledge concerning tax increases during last night’s debate in Iowa. The question posed by the moderator, I really do not remember which one, was this, “if you were offered a deal which proposed spending cuts 10 times as great as a tax increase, would you take it.” Each Candidate smartly balked at the trap offered. The spending cuts will never, ever materialize. What’s worse, the taxing and spending aren’t the only factors in our economic woes. “It’s the regulation stupid.”  We got this little piece of wonderful news added to an already struggling economy.

WASHINGTON–President Obama announced the first-ever fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards for long-haul rigs, work trucks, and other heavy duty vehicles Tuesday, the second mileage pact with manufacturers in less than a month.

The regulations call for reductions on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 2018 of 9 to 23 percent, depending on the type of vehicle. Trucks and other heavy vehicles make up only 4 percent of the domestic vehicle fleet, but given the distance they travel, the time they spend idling and their low fuel efficiency, they end up consuming about 20% of all vehicle fuel, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Experts say that a 20 percent reduction in heavy vehicle emissions would boost fuel efficiency to an average of 8 miles per gallon from 6 miles now.

The announcement comes less than two weeks after Obama and the country’s automakers unveiled new fuel economy rules for passenger vehicles that would boost fleet-wide average gas mileage to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, from about 27.8 miles per gallon now.

The problem dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves. This was the famous line in which Cassius tells Brutus to look in the mirror as to why he had not achieved the success he wished for. In January of this year, during his State of The Union Address, President Obama vowed to ease the regulations which were choking our economy, and preventing our economic activity from maintaining itself, let alone growing. Since that time, his Administration has become the single most restrictive and economically vindictive administration in U.S. history. We now live in a society where hairdressers require a greater degree of class room education than doctors. Our oil companies have not been permitted to open a single new refinery in over 40 years. We have done everything humanly possible to stop oil production domestically, and most of our citizens, for the first time in history need some form of government granted permission in order to work.

This round of idiocy to further destroy our economy for decades to come was of course sold to us as a piece of green fairy tale euphoria. Who doesn’t want all of our cars to collectively have an average MPG of 54 miles per hour. Here is the problem though. In order to have an average fleet sales reach 54 MPG, that would mean that for every car that could actually haul a family of say 4, for example, G.M would have to sell 5 or 6 cars capable of attaining 65 MPG. Who is the lucky sucker that gets to purchase that baby. Well, as it turns out, the government will have to do some tinkering in order to coerce you into making that decision. An extra tax will be levied on the bad car, and a subsidy offered for the good care will ensue. The subsidy will of course be paid for by us schlubs who work for a living. The bad cars will be driven by the ruling elites who are charged with looking out for our best interests, since we are incapable. The standards on the trucks charged with shipping, that is another animal altogether. We will get to pay for that with increased prices in every store which sells us groceries and merchandise. This decision will prevent job creators from expanding or building much quicker than a tax increase ever could. Of course, there will be a whole new government bureaucracy necessary to enforce the aggressive cafe standards. That means a whole slew of government employees paid for by you and me with armed with new powers of governmental authority. The right to say prevent you from buying the car of your choice in January because our nation or even your state has had its quota of cars sold in the mileage range of your need or choice. The carpool police may even be given the authority to check your efficiency at the pump through random inspections.

Later, when the auto manufacturing industry begins to slow down, because we have tried our best to kill it, another bureaucracy might be needed to prevent layoffs in industries where government involvement has indeed caused its inevitable damage. Next time, instead of the government buying cars through transfer payments and then subsequently throwing them away, (by the way causing the good folks in the auto parts business to lose revenue,) maybe we could do it with new cars in order to prevent a drop off in demand for expensive cars nobody wants. The damage done by overbearing regulation is far greater than the damage done by taxation. We can see taxes, the new regulations escape the light of day after the initial notice. The full consequences are hard to predict, and serve to thwart economic activity. The less businesses operating, or growing, the lower the amount of taxes they will be able to pay. With our current economic mess, and budgetary issues, the last thing President Obama should be doing is inflicting even greater damage upon us.

Cross Posted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.