E-bikes are a solid choice for personal mobility, especially in cities where car travel is uncomfortably slow. They are also expensive. Naturally, some Democrats in Congress have recently proposed a electric bike subsidy that will be 30 percent off, up to $1,500, off the price of any electric bike for taxpayers earning less than $150,000 per year. Unfortunately, we’re living in 2023, which means the bill’s supporters are being pulled in Another culture war. And this case involves the son of the former CEO of American Motors.
Insiders have a good article on thissynthesize a wide range of responses to e-bike bills from conservatives, including Senator Utah Mitt Romney, whose father is George served as president and president of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962.
Romney has a problem with the government spending any dollars to make e-bikes cheaper, but he also doesn’t want to see federal funding for creating space on our roads for bicycles. , because he thinks they’re stupid. Here’s what he said, as quoted by Insiders:
“I wouldn’t spend money on e-bikes for people who bought them like me – they’re expensive,” he said. “Abandoning car lanes for bicycle lanes is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of stupidity, it means more cars in reverse, which produces more emissions.”
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There are a lot of obvious logical problems in that short excerpt, it’s almost impressive. First, yes – electric bikes are expensive, that’s why the bill propose. Second, I totally believe Mitt Romney can afford one, because 5 years ago he made 22 million dollars.
Third, when you create more car lanes, what you get is more car traffic. This is not a theory – it is a fact of the need to causeand had distant also much example of it globally for anyone to join this conversation to pretend to know nothing about it. If anything, creating bike lanes encourages some drivers ride bicycle instead, remove cars from the road, helping to reduce emissions.
Romney recommends that those who will be biking should use public transit instead. I’m sure they would, if we didn’t live in a country where Public transit options mostly suck, if they exist.
I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight another great quote from piece of insidercourtesy of Tim Carney, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute:
“There’s widespread suspicion on the right that libertarians want to take away their way of life,” Carney told Insider. “The idea that the left knows there’s only one right way to live, that’s the way we want to live and we’re going to impose it on you. That’s fundamental in the thinking of conservatives, and so when they hear more bike lanes, they think, ‘Okay, what’s that code for?’”
It’s code for nothing. Actually! Honestly, people just want to be able to get where they need to go. Cars are too expensive, and our elected officials are completely uninterested in that. Gas is too expensive, but politicians on the big oil payroll are actively sabotaging How to make EVs more affordable. Trains are crashing and spewing toxic hell left and right.
I don’t own a bike myself, but I’m pretty sure cyclists doesn’t really care how anyone else travels. Although we are talking about the topic of “forcing others to live”, no one lives near a road where trucks pass by. claim their lifespan is cut short due to pollutionand no one with a womb is begging for them constitutional right to travel between states Okay obstructed. For some individuals, I’m sure the mere suggestion of an American exchanging a Wrangler for a RadRunner is enough to break the fabric of this country, like gas stove imaginary death. But maybe, just maybe, e-bike advocates and bike lane advocates are just looking for a modest, relatively inexpensive way to get around.
