Toyota's Hearing Was For Raising Money for the Federal Government, Again

and again and again and...

Remember the brief but intense circus last February, when the federal agencies ganged up on Toyota? Now we have the result which I suspect was the government's purpose all along: more money going from us, to the coffers of the federal government.

House panel releases auto safety proposals (4/29/2010 AP via Yahoo Finance)

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- New cars and trucks would be required to carry black boxes to record crash information and automakers would pay fees to help fund the government's auto safety agency under a series of proposals in Congress in response to Toyota's massive recalls.

"...The draft legislation, released by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., would eliminate the cap on civil penalties an automaker could face and allow NHTSA to order an immediate recall if it finds an "imminent hazard of death or serious injury." It would also require new safety standards related to brake override systems, the prevention of pedals from getting trapped in floor mats and vehicle electronics.

"...The proposal would require a U.S. auto executive to certify the accuracy of information submitted to NHTSA in response to a government investigation. Any executive who provided false information could face up to $250 million in fines.

"Vehicles would be required to be equipped with event data recorders, commonly known as black boxes, to help authorities reconstruct the elements that led to a crash.

"The plan also creates a "vehicle user fee" of $3 per vehicle, increasing to $9 in its third year, to fund NHTSA's vehicle safety program. Safety groups have said the agency is underfunded and ill-equipped to investigate complicated safety problems." [Emphasis is mine. The article continues.]

If a private party does something similar, it is called blackmailing and extortion.

"Vehicle user fee"? A protection racket. Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano would be proud.

The whole point of this legislation is to grab more money for the government to feed its further growth. It it ends up raising costs for everyone else, well that's too bad but you want to be safe, don't you?

You see, the federal government is the ultimate Vampire Squid, not Goldman Sachs whom the ultimate VS is going after with "criminal charges" to extort even more money. (GS is penalized, some speculate, for making the government look stupid during the Senate hearing.)

Unlike Goldman, this ultimate VS can simply create a new legislation over any real or imagined problem so that it can jab its tentacles into a fresh body which didn't exist before. And it sure grows much, mush faster because it can afford to hire and retain workers of dubious qualifications and capabilities (some of them are extremely good at surfing the net, for sure).

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