Federales Burn Energy and Us, Too

Here's how it's done.

You get a bottle of metal polish. You squeeze it on a cloth and rub the plastic headlight lenses of your car.

That removes the yellow film so you can see the road at night.

For amusement during those 10 minutes every two to four weeks — two to four hours a year — you can curse Washington.

The lenses are plastic instead of glass to lighten the car and meet federal fuel efficiency requirements.

We might be dead because of clouded headlights, but it is a small price to pay for progress.

Because of fuel economy standards, we have plastic brackets under our hoods. When they break, the car stops, or worse.

We have body parts so delicate you can't mow down a daffodil without getting $2,000 in damage. Imagine the expense if you spotted a herd of congressmen crossing the road.

As they strap you on the gurney, you can say, "Those devil headlights made me do it!"

In tradition, Democrats and Republicans have disgorged another advance in economic incompetence and theft: the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

The Decider signed it. It had Independence in the title, alluding to fading memories of Bunker Hill. It had Security in it, too, because Americans lust for the Nanny State, self-reliance and self-defense having gone the way of our dusty and discarded Constitution.

The bill was as much about independence and security as bills called Patriot or Freedom are about those things.

Among the lowlights of the new law? A fuel economy standard of 35 mpg by 2020.

New cars will be made of Styrofoam with a pearl-coat finish.

Gangleaders of both parties touted the latest scam as a wonder of legislative patriotism.

Let's do some math on the savings of plastic headlight lenses.

We have about 140 million cars on the road.

If each will require four hours a year of headlight cleaning labor at the 2009 minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, then Americans will spend about $4 billion a year rubbing headlights.

That's a potential cost of just one part on our cars and just one part of the law.

The federal government does not do cost-benefit analyses. If so, the game would be up, because a docile public bears the costs and a predatory lobby gets the benefits.

Of the energy law, the CEO of BlueFire Ethanol said, "We are pleased at the government's continued commitment to the biofuels industry."

I guess so. His company will be propped up at taxpayer expense, as dollars are hijacked from our pockets and put into his.

We may give thanks this holiday season that BlueFire's tables will be festively loaded while ours will be less.

The bill aims to phase out incandescent light bulbs, too.

This will force us to buy fluorescent bulbs made in China that last perhaps a third of their advertised life but cost 10 times more.

The makers and importers of these bulbs will make out like subsidized bandits.

The bill sticks the federal nose into the manufacture of appliances and heating and cooling systems. This should ensure higher prices and revenue for the companies that make them. An additional bonus? Less competition. Smaller companies will sink under the load of added regulation.

We might expect quality on a par with the federally mandated toilets that don't flush.

Our fascist economic model cripples capitalism. Instead of price efficiency, we get a partnership of government and business called an energy bill.

We get not independence but instead are shackled to higher costs. We get not security but instead the danger of theft.

We continue the federal march toward equality — the equality of poverty.

Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at plucas@pcnh.com. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.