In an editorial titled, “Uncle Sam Wants You…To Buy Electric Cars,” USA Today’s editorial board argued today that EV tax breaks are “just the latest addition to a long, long list of industry-specific tax breaks designed to encourage certain types of consumer behavior.”
Although the newspaper acknowledged that the tax breaks are well-meaning, it questioned their value.
“The federal government has decided to pitch in, with a tax credit of $7,500 for buyers of the pricey but climate-friendly vehicles,” the newspaper writes in today’s edition. “The intentions are good, the need to jump-start an alternative-energy industry is real and the cost is fairly low. But put the subsidy in another context, and the appeal plummets. It is just the latest addition to a long, long list of industry-specific tax breaks designed to encourage certain types of consumer behavior and aid certain favored interests. Collectively, they cost the Treasury a staggering $1 trillion a year, much of it for dubious ends.”
In a rebuttal, the Electric Drive Transportation Association argued that “electric drive vehicles, which replace oil with electricity, are essential to solving U.S. oil dependence and the economic, security and environmental threats it creates.”
