Hybrid tax credits: Why Congress still sucks

Automakers, especially America's Big 3, claim increasing CAFE is just too expensive. Apparently, ending foreign oil dependency just doesn't matter.

Nonetheless, in an effort to give automakers a little nudge, Congress created tax credits for hybrid cars and other clean technologies. Quite quickly, Toyota used all of their full tax credits. GM and Chrysler, on the other hand, have yet to sell one full hybrid.

Is that the sign of successful legislation?

Even with reduced tax credits, Toyota will probably sell more than 150,000 Prius hybrid cars this year. In all, Toyota might sell a quarter million hybrids in the U.S. in just 2007. Yet, how many more hybrid cars could Toyota sell if consumers still qualified for the full tax credit?

Extending tax credits for Toyota's hybrid cars isn't going to force the bankruptcy of American automakers. Extending tax credits for Toyota's hybrid cars will, however, force American automakers to take foreign-oil-dependency-reducing technologies much more seriously.

Besides, won't such competition be required to make a serious increase in CAFE possible? Or, is all this CAFE political buzz just another Congressional game?