Steve Moore: Pelosi, Schumer hate 'tax cuts for the rich' except for Tesla, GM electric vehicle drivers
Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are head cheerleaders for a bill that would extend and even expand tax favors to pad the pockets of mostly wealthy Americans who can afford to buy pricy Tesla and GM electric vehicles.
Why are Democrats Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi teaming up to lobby for a tax bill that would provide about 80 percent of the benefits to Americans who make more than $100,000 a year?
Schumer and Pelosi are the ones who for the last two years have been railing against income inequality and “tax cuts for the rich” but now they are head cheerleaders for a bill that would extend and even expand tax favors to pad the pockets of mostly wealthy Americans who can afford to buy pricy Tesla and GM electric vehicles. The price tag for taxpayers could reach $16 billion for this bill.
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What’s next, tax breaks for buying a Porsche or a Rolls Royce?
Half of the tax breaks would go to residents of just two states. Guess which two! California, Pelosi’s home state and New York, Schumer’s home state. Coincidence? The voters of 48 states would get stuck paying most of the tab to underwrite the cars of those living in Manhattan and Silicon Valley.
These tax credits are far and away more generous than the rebates the car dealerships typically use to entice buyers. Uncle Sam offers a $7,500 tax credit for electric car buyers – a policy that is supposed to be phased out this year for the two biggest manufacturers – Tesla and GM. Surprise, surprise, the two companies are lobbying furiously to keep the government money flowing.
Schumer has threatened to hold this year’s tax bill hostage if the Tesla “temporary” subsidy isn’t renewed. The credits are to be phased out beginning next year but the Senate bill would give them a new lease on life.
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The House bill is even worse: it would triple the existing cap on subsidies of 200,000 per manufacturer. There is also talk in the House of creating a new credit of up to $2,500 for used electric vehicles. So, you buy a Tesla or GM electric vehicle, you get $7,500 and then you sell it and the new buyer gets $2,500 on the SAME vehicle.
The bill also includes billions of dollars for extensions of wind and solar subsidies (that were also supposed to expire many years ago). They even added in $5 billion of new spending on “environmental justice” grants to universities – as if campus green leftists needed any more help on that score.
The head start program for EVs in especially egregious because, as my Heritage Foundation colleague, economist Nick Loris, notes many states have their own EV incentives, and in these states taxpayers are essentially writing a $10,000 rebate check to EV drivers.
Loris also notes that because EVs don’t use gasoline at the pump, they receive an added subsidy because they don’t pay directly for the roads and highways and bridges they use.
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Even worse, while Congress is preparing to expand this program, the Treasury inspector general has recently uncovered rampant fraud.
The IG found an astonishing 16,510 tax returns with "potentially erroneous" electric vehicle tax credits worth a total of $73.8 million. It appears that credits are being claimed for ineligible vehicles and that many leased vehicles are being fraudulently double subsidized – with one valid claim by the leasing company and a second, invalid claim by the lessee. The additional $2,500 per vehicle credit for the sale of used EVs will open a whole new garage full of fraudulent claims.
“The credit is working. It just needs a little more time," says Genevieve Cullen, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association. But experience teaches us that these green subsidies never go away once they are extended. They become lifetime entitlements.
The biggest single beneficiary of the EV tax subsidy is Tesla founder Elon Musk. He is a billionaire and if Congress extends the tax credits, the value will be capitalized into Tesla stock – that means he is about to get a lot richer.
Rather than unworkable wealth taxes on America’s millionaires and billionaires, wouldn’t it be better if Pelosi and Schumer stopped subsidizing them?
Steve Moore is an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He served as an economic adviser to Donald Trump in 2016.