WHAT OBAMA’S CAR CZAR CENTRAL COMMITTEE WANTS

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“Auto Task Force Road Trip Shows Long Road Ahead,” posted by CNBC’s Phil LeBeau is a prime example of the Seinfeld Rule of blogging – e.g. A post about nothing.

LeBeau’s feel good thesis is that the Obama Auto Task force (the way-in-over-their-heads appliance motorists, liberal car-hating activists, and mass transit riders known here as the “Car Czar Central Committee") haven’t produced diddly-squat yet because General Motors and Chrysler are really big problems.

President Obama's Auto Team has been working long hours the last two weeks trying to figure out how to re-build an industry broken by a painful recession and problems that have festered for decades. . . It will take longer than two weeks for the mechanics in Washington to come up with a way to repair it.

Other than the obvious, reflexive gagging at the thought of any one of the Car Czar mopes being referred to as “mechanics,” the savvy reaction of any reader should be: how could anyone who has NO AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN, MANUFACTURING, MARKETING, REPAIR, OR EVEN SALES EXPERIENCE ever hope to even figure out the true causes of the problem, much less viable solutions in six months, much less two weeks!

LeBeau, of course, apparently doesn’t want to point out the absolute insanity of Obama’s “task force” approach.

It’s as if the infamous “O.J. jury” has been charged with determining the fate of one-tenth of the U.S. economy. And apparently these newly-minted “mechanics in Washington” are cramming through a listening tour that’s even less than the one Hillary Clinton took before her well-financed entry into carpet-bagging name-recognition/liberal identity politics.

So nearly anyone who can fog an auto-darkening mirror ought to have already realized that the “listening tour” is nothing more than window dressing for what the Car Czar Central Committee is already expected by their political handlers to do.

1. Engineer a “soft landing” for the U.A.W.

Obama simply cannot “throw” the U.A.W. under the union-built, union-driven “bus.” The union played too big a role in his electoral coalition. The Central Committee listening tour is thus about being able to dissemble on how new “green” “electo-matic micorcars” (which no one on the Central Committee has a clue about how to engineer, build, market, or sell profitably) are going to “save” oodles of Democrat-voting U.A.W. jobs.

In other words, look for the Central Committee to approve any expenditure that keeps union members in the short-term working on untested and unproven electrics and hybrids and to deny anything that would compete for resources or showroom space with “green” vehicles or reductions in union jobs.

Also expect the Central Committee to push retasking of the Beg 2 into more mass transit manufacturing at some point.

The bankruptcy alternative would be messier because if liquidation is to be avoided, so must the gold-plated U.A.W. contracts. The Car Czar Central Committee will do their best to avoid this outcome, unless the Beg 2 simply do not kowtow to the “change” agenda.

Regardless of whether one or both of the Beg 2 end up liquidated, much of the U.A.W.’s VEBA responsibility will be off-loaded onto the taxpayers under the guise of national health insurance and “pension reform.” The Car Czar Central Committee will sell this off-loading as “our responsibility.”

2. Provide cover for dramatically ratcheted-up national standards on fuel economy/Greenhouse gas emissions.

California Air Resource Board chairwoman Mary Nichols told an EPA hearing last week that the state would consider withdrawing its request for a waiver allowing it to regulate carbon dioxide. Before that happens though a national standard needs to be put in place.

Reading between the lines, the Obama Administration is virtually certain to link “saving Detroit” with even higher national (or perhaps even international) fuel economy standards. The Car Czar Central Committee is undoubtedly collecting sound-bites on the “necessity” of “one standard” as a means to increasing the Beg 2's competitiveness.

Lurking in the background will be other “sticks” to force consumers into their government-approved electric-wonder microcars, such as European-style fuel use taxes, punitive carbon taxes on “clunkers” (which will include anything from a million-dollar Duesenburg Phaeton to a barely-mobile Yugo), and a revival of government/utility-funded scrappage programs to dry up alternatives to government-mandated micromachines and mass transit.

The “carrots” will consist of wide open taps for research and development of new econo-boxes and mass transit systems, and more redistributive transfer payments to low-income voters to “enable” the transition to urbanized mass transit, higher operational costs for private vehicles, and expensive restrictions on automotive choice.

The current depression in auto sales plays into this because it will deprive the used car market of “fresh meat” for a period of time, drive up used car prices, and make the “winners” picked by the Central Committee more economically viable.

3. Criticize unacceptable manifestations of automotive freedom.

The Obama Car Czar Central Committee will use the cigarette litigation/gun control models to isolate and demonize “unacceptable” automotive choices.

The narrative will be that the Detroit 3:(a) lured consumers into planet-killing and “unsafe” trucks, SUVs and vans, (b) unreasonably marketed speed, horsepower, and rugged off-road adventure through advertising and motorsports involvement, (c) conspired to deprive the market of fuel-saving technologies, and (d) fought reasonable consumer protections and necessary safety/emission regulations at every turn.

They will demand a quid pro quo: Stop “irresponsible” marketing in exchange for a government lifeline.

4. Cover up Washington D.C.’s policy failures.

Nothing that the Obama Car Czar team will utter will come close to admitting the real truth behind the “problems that have festered for decades” – that federal meddling in the free market has mostly caused this mess.

Instead, they will attack the anecdotal short-sightedness of “Detroit” and laud the anecdotal brilliance of the Japanese (while ignoring that we let the Japanese auto industry incubate for decades without domestic competition and develop a government-subsidized, predatory business model. They also won’t admit that federal policies tied the hands of the Detroit 3 to compete on a level playing field and bled them to death through thousands of regulations, lawsuits, and unfunded mandates.)

They will lament the lack of regulation in some areas as “market failure” and will proclaim that only more government control will keep the Beg 2 from committing suicide in the market.

The Obama Car Czar Central Committee may not know a thing about the automobile business, but they’re undoubtedly well-schooled on what “the ONE” and his legion of mean green social engineers want for it.