Obama and Granholm and Schwarzenegger, Oh My!

Barack Obama and Jennifer Granholm (and Arnold Schwarzenegger for good measure) have finally agreed on emission and mileage standards for new vehicles. It will prove to be, of course, largely irrelevant to global temperatures but will manage to punish consumers mercilessly at the car lot.

Estimates are that the price of a single automobile will rise by approximately $1,300 to meet the new standards in 2016.

But worry not saith The Obama!

Obama agreed that “it costs money to build these vehicles.” But he also stressed that “the cost of driving these vehicles will go down as drivers save money at the pump.”

What is being suspiciously left out of this narrative is that it is not the goal of the Obama administration or environmentalists to offer motorists a less expensive way to drive or, honestly, even to mitigate the increase in the cost of the new automobiles. In fact that would run counter to the energy strategy that Obama brazenly embraced when he said that energy costs would "necessarily rise" in order to spur conservation. Any cost savings realized at the pump are nothing more than an inadvertent byproduct to consumers that are paying too much attention to Michelle Obama's fabulous arms than they are to notice the second half of his overall environmental/energy strategy.

Simply put, it is the goal of this administration and environmentalists to increase the price of travel to punitive levels in order to keep people off the road. When adequately punished travelers do meekly find the will to climb behind the wheel of the best balsa wood and tissue paper car that Detroit can build, they certainly will enjoy the best gas mileage possible, however, they will also be subjected to astronomical prices at the gas pump due to energy and tax policies that are still being formulated.

This is the future that our overlords have decided we must embrace. All travel must be christened absolutely necessary in order to comply with the plan, and all necessary travel so christened must be conducted in a manner that complies with state directives aboard a government blessed car.

Lets see just how these overall policies impact our finances before we get so silly as to celebrate our potential savings at the pump.