I listen to Regressive talk radio from time to time, mainly when I'm trapped in a car without my iDevice, but nonetheless I like to know which way the wind is blowing on the other side of the divide. Today I heard something so stupid from Mr. Rush Limbaugh that I'm not entirely sure if it was a case of lazy thinking or...let's just say clouded judgement.
Today's Limbaugh rant was on the call from General Motors' CEO to raise the federal gas tax by a dollar, to push consumers toward more fuel efficient cars. "Crony capitalism!" he screeched. And then he used this analogy: that the CEO of GM calling for an increased gas tax to sell more fuel efficient cars was like the CEO of Kellogs calling for an increased tax on milk.
Wait, what?
If I'm the CEO of Kellogs, the last thing I want is for the price of milk to go up, as most people (my children being the exception) eat their cereal with milk. If I can't afford milk for my cereal, I'm probably going to cut down on my cereal intake, thereby decreasing cereal sales. If I'm the CEO of Kellogs, then I probably want people to eat as much of my cereal as possible, so cheap milk is a win for me. So why would increasing milk taxes propel me into the realm of crony capitalism if an increase in milk tax doesn't benefit me?
I'll give Limbaugh this--if the government did collude with car makers (and other US auto manufacturers have called for this, not just the evil socialist GM, as Limbaugh intimated) to raise the gas tax to boost sales, hey, that is crony capitalism! Congrats, here's your party hat. But when you can't seem to grasp basic economics, your free-market bona fides should be questioned, and hard. Yet since Limbaugh still seems bewildered by the free market smacking him on the ass and sending him home with a T-shirt over his attempted NFL buy-in, poor business analogies shouldn't surprise anyone, really.
Oh and PS--there's been about 1,000 Volts sold since their debut last October, not the 200 that Limbaugh claimed today. I'm sure these programs use anti-fact checkers!