Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aladin who wrote (36508)	3/26/2004 4:45:13 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793939

The Auto unions are letting their politics overcome their good sense. Detroit news editorial. Kerry Should Drop Job-Killing Fuel Economy Proposal If he hopes to capture Michigan workers, the Democrat must be more sensitive to the automobile industry Sen. John Kerry is expected to pick up the endorsement of the United Auto Workers union during a stop in Michigan today. No surprise there. The UAW always endorses the Democratic presidential candidate. But his automatic selection by the union ought not excuse Kerry from having to talk straight about issues important to Michigan’s automobile industry. When they endorsed Kerry prior to the Michigan party caucuses in February, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other leading state Democrats assured state voters that the Massachusetts senator had softened his views on fuel economy standards and would do nothing to cost Michigan workers their jobs. Granholm and others said Kerry told them he was not locked to any target number for raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. But a visit to the senator’s campaign web site indicates otherwise. There, he explains that hiking CAFE is a major component of his plan for reducing dependence on foreign oil. And the senator gets very specific. The target he has in mind is a fleet average of 36 miles per gallon by the year 2015 — a 50 percent increase over current standards. The position reflects a lack of understanding of the auto industry that is perhaps understandable for a New England senator. The technology simply doesn’t exist to make such drastic improvements in barely more than a decade. Getting to Kerry’s target would require taking even more weight out of vehicles. And that would make them more deadly. A Harvard University-Brookings Institution study found that the weight already removed from vehicles to meet rising CAFE standards is responsible for more than 2,000 additional deaths a year. At the same time, CAFE has not worked to curb America’s appetite for gasoline. Per capita consumption of the fuel remains above 600 gallons a year, roughly the same as it was 20 years ago. Higher CAFE standards will also force automakers to abandon the highly profitable light trucks and sport utility vehicles that account for about half the manufacturing employment in the domestic automobile industry. That inevitably will mean job losses in Michigan. More creative solutions are needed. Simply making a failed mandate even stricter is not the answer to cutting gasoline consumption. Kerry’s best shot at defeating President George W. Bush is to claim that the country can’t afford Bush as president any longer because of the loss of manufacturing jobs, the budget deficit and the sluggish recovery. But in supporting CAFE restrictions that are unreasonable and probably technologically impossible to achieve, he ruins his best argument — that he is better for the economy and the American middle and working classes than is the current president. Kerry needs to win large industrial states like Michigan. How will he reconcile his CAFE stance with the realities of Michigan’s most important industry? Kerry must do a better job in explaining that if he hopes to earn the votes of the workers he is targeting.