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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (393013)	6/20/2008 1:45:17 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1578890

My problem, however, is that when it comes to technology, government is far from forward-looking. Sure, hybrid technology is a proven winner so hardly anyone is going to argue against tax breaks for hybrids. But what about electric cars and the fail zero-emission vehicle standards? Would it make sense to give tax breaks for electric vehicles paid for by tax hikes on all other cars? No one likes 100% electric cars, at least not the kind we see today that only get 60 miles a charge. Does it make sense to use tax dollars to fund loser technologies? Or is the public just not looking far enough into an oil-free future? If you base the incentive strictly on the use of gasoline per mile then the consumer makes the technology decision, not the government. It could even be an internal combustion engine that gets 50 MPG... it doesn't have to be a hybrid. Better to just spend the tax money funding R&D for better technologies, then let the free market determine which ones should win. At least the government can bear the risk of R&D funding. Then you have the government making the technology decisions with all that entails. If some company has a powerful Congressman and crappy tech they are likely to get funded... you know the drill.