Newt Targets The Volt

In his latest attempt to distinguish himself from both President Obama and his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich blasted the President's transportation and energy policy while campaigning in Oklahoma by claiming it was anti-American to encourage the development of electric cars and more fuel-efficient conventional vehicles when the free market has shown a clear preference for light trucks, preferring instead to drill for more oil to increase the supply of gasoline and bring gas prices down (although American oil would be sold on the global market and have no effect on gas prices home). He drew numerous cheers from the hayseeds he was addressing when he added, "You cannot put a gun rack on a Volt."

It's easy to attack General Motors after it used its government loans to develop an electric Chevy that costs almost as much as an entry-level Cadillac and has had teething problems in its early stages. Also, anyone who needs a gun rack on his vehicle wouldn't buy one anyway. But it's weird that Gingrich would complain about so much money spent on helping American car companies develop electric cars when, as Michigan Live's Jeff Wattrick is ready to remind us, Newt wants a lunar base that would be more expensive and yield fewer consumer-friendly benefits. Newt also says he would prefer to spend the subsidy on helping Americans who can't afford a Volt to buy a cheaper used car - preferably a pickup, I'm sure.

Okay. Never mind that a subsidy for a used car would make it less necessary for GM to sell a new car and make it less necessary for GM to keep as many dealerships as they have remaining after the mass dealership closures of 2009. Yes, GM is making smaller cars, but they've been making small cars since the late seventies. That includes the downsizing of their larger cars in response to rising gas prices; the big sedans GM used to make before the 1973 oil crisis bear no resemblance to their largest sedans of today. The current crop of GM's largest cars are two feet shorter than the big sedans they were making forty years ago - because the free market demanded smaller (but not necessarily small) cars. And yes, the Volt costs nearly $40,000, but new technologically advanced products always cost a lot when first introduced. As they technology becomes more mainstream, the price of the product comes down. DVD players, after all, were very expensive when they first went on the market in 1997. Now they're so cheap that even CVS can sell them.

And, true, more people have bought pickups and SUVs in the past twenty years rather than small cars, but no one is stopping Detroit from making them. And if you do need a vehicle that can bear a gun rack, you can still buy a Chevrolet Silverado pickup.

Oh, and, by the way, while you can't put a gun rack on a Volt, you can put a gun rack in a Volt:

Happy driving!