The technological advances of the past few decades have made our lives much better. Communication is simple and gathering information could not be any easier from hundreds of sources. There also is more choice when it comes to products, like cars, that people want to purchase. With the tech advances and an expansion of consumer options there are emerging threats to Americans’ control over their own property and information that are under assault by government bureaucrats attempting to use technology to control Americans.
One would think that President Joe Biden, whose poll numbers have been spiraling downward, would want to be highlighting popular ideas to turbocharge the economy and cut down on some of our national debt. One would be wrong. Biden is unpopular because of his policies that have hamstrung the economy and limited choice.
Politicians usually are sensitive to poll numbers. President Biden has about a 56% disapproval rate putting him about 15% more disliked than liked. Add in the latest New York Times poll that has him behind in every swing state with the exception of Wisconsin and we see a campaign in trouble. Astute political advisors should scrub all the actions of the Biden Administration to rid them of any policy proposal that would enrage the very voters that Biden is hemorrhaging to former President Donald J. Trump. To date, that is not happening.
A case study from three years ago that caused a bipartisan political insurrection should be instructive for Team Biden on how to avoid enraging Republicans and disappointing Democrats. There was loud opposition from the right and left to the idea of implementing an ‘Internet Kill Switch.’ According to Reason reporting on September 25, 2020, “Sens. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), Ron Wyden (D–Ore), and Gary Peters (D–Mich.), along with Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii) and Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), introduced bills this week to abolish the so-called ‘internet kill switch’—a sweeping emergency executive authority over communications technology that predates World War II.” The idea was to disarm any future Republican or Democrat President from having the sole power to order an unelected bureaucrat to shut down the Internet or any other communication channel during an ‘emergency.’ As we know, the government will play with the definition of an ‘emergency’ if it suits their purposes and that is a great danger to freedom.
A new, similar expansive power that the Biden Administration is trying to grab is the ‘Car Kill Switch.’ Rep. Massie has been pushing the idea of defunding the federal government’s power to impose a “looming mandate that all new vehicles sold after 2026 be equipped with technology that can automatically disable vehicles.” The Halt Act was added to the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act that directed “the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue a safety standard to require new cars be equipped with impaired driving prevention technology,” as described by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Basically, the federal government used the tragedy of a drunk driving accident as a pretext to install devices in every new car that give the government the power to turn off your car by a police officer with good intentions or a government official or hacker with bad ones. As usual a good intentioned idea is being used by the government to chip away at the property rights and privacy of all Americans.
The Biden administration’s attempt to alienate average Americans does not stop there. Biden is proposing a mandate that most Americans be forced to purchase an Electric Vehicle (EV) in the next ten years. This terrible idea is in the form of an order to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to mandate that two-thirds of all Americans be forced to purchase a plug-in car by 2032. Republicans in the House should defund this proposal using power of the purse to stop EV huggers in the Biden Administration from forcing this on people who want to keep their gas powered car. Diana Furchtgott-Roth of The Heritage Foundation pointed out that only 6% of EVs “were on the road in 2022—for no environmental benefit.” This mandate is unrealistic and so ridiculous that it may end up being the reason Biden may need movers in January of 2025 to get his stuff out of the Oval Office and the White House.
Republicans are no better when they push increased ethanol mandates or support vehicle miles traveled taxes to build more roads and bridges, yet the focus of Biden campaign killing ideas like a car kill switch and a mandate to slowly exterminate gas powered cars will end up suppressing votes for Biden in states he needs like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
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