Enjoy the new CAFE standards!

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said Sunday the new fuel efficiency requirements imposed by Congress last month would add $6,000 to the price of an average GM vehicle by the end of the next decade… “We’ve done even more research and it’s going to be in the range of $4,000 to $10,000 with an average of about $6,000,” Lutz said. “This is going to be a net average of cost of $6,000 per vehicle which will have to be passed onto the consumer. The good news is it won’t come all at once, because 35 mpg doesn’t kick in all at once.”

Six thousand dollars! On average! I can hear the auto-loan officers, the used car dealers, and the aluminum industry licking their chops.

It’s not enough to thank Democrats in Congress, who wrote and passed that ludicrous energy bill — after all, what about the President who signed it? But still, remember this next time you hear a Democratic politician complaining about middle-class families that can barely scrape by — about the single mother who can’t make it in this economy. Next time Hillary Clinton brings her up, I also want to hear why that single mother is now less important than a possibly–at-risk polar bear.

This is part of the “new direction” for America. Inflate of the price of cars, fuel, and food. Justify it by scaring people with hyperbolic, doomsday predictions about unknown (and mostly unknowable) future effects of global warming. Throw in the doubtful proposition that incremental steps like this can do anything to stop global warming, and you might fool some people into thinking that it’s worth accepting an economy they can’t afford to live in.