Pork on the stimulus bill according to the GOP

[Master of Ossus]

On the other hand, saturate enough of the market with hybrids and the manufacturers will have more incentive to convert their lines and phase out the older gas guzzling models. It seems to me that there's less incentive to switch if people could still get regular vehicles cheaper without the subsidy.

Well, true, but presumably you'd subsidize to the same extent that the government was spending on the hybrid vs. normal vehicle issue, so they'd sell at least as many vehicles (since the government presumably needs the cars, anyway), but would allocate them to people who actually wanted them and had the best use of them. So there wouldn't be more of an incentive to convert lines to hybrids under this system than there would be with the subsidy, and there might be less.

[General Zod]

Well, true, but presumably you'd subsidize to the same extent that the government was spending on the hybrid vs. normal vehicle issue, so they'd sell at least as many vehicles (since the government presumably needs the cars, anyway), but would allocate them to people who actually wanted them and had the best use of them. So there wouldn't be more of an incentive to convert lines to hybrids under this system than there would be with the subsidy, and there might be less.

Why half ass it? If the goal is to convert over to hybrids in order to ween us off oil dependence, taking the most direct route to market saturation would be the way to go. As long as the manufacturers are guaranteed purchases of hybrids and are told that the old models aren't wanted, they should (in theory) be more than happy to gradually convert as many lines over as they can.

[Master of Ossus]

Why half ass it? If the goal is to convert over to hybrids in order to ween us off oil dependence, taking the most direct route to market saturation would be the way to go. As long as the manufacturers are guaranteed purchases of hybrids and are told that the old models aren't wanted, they should (in theory) be more than happy to gradually convert as many lines over as they can.

Precisely my point: the subsidy will sell at least as many hybrids as this, but sells them to the general public instead of the government and could lead to other benefits like customer familiarity with the new technology.

[General Zod]

Precisely my point: the subsidy will sell at least as many hybrids as this, but sells them to the general public instead of the government and could lead to other benefits like customer familiarity with the new technology.

I'm not sure it would be as effective as you think it would be. Private citizens will require much more convincing to sell their old cars which work perfectly fine for a newer hybrid, subsidy or not than a federal employee who can just be told "Look, you're getting a new car for work, the government's footing the bill so shut up and like it".

[Master of Ossus]

I'm not sure it would be as effective as you think it would be. Private citizens will require much more convincing to sell their old cars which work perfectly fine for a newer hybrid, subsidy or not than a federal employee who can just be told "Look, you're getting a new car for work, the government's footing the bill so shut up and like it".

In which case the government could simply buy the car at the subsidized price. What's the problem? You're just excluding non-government uses of hybrid cars.

[Questor]

In which case the government could simply buy the car at the subsidized price. What's the problem? You're just excluding non-government uses of hybrid cars.

My interpretation of that line item was that they were company cars, and would be part of the federal government's fleet.

If it's for purchase incentives for privately owned vehicles, I'm as confused as others seem to be.

If it's an indirect stimulus for hybrid car makers, then I really have no idea what to say.

[SirNitram]

All I have to say on the buying of hybrids for the government fleets is: Phoenix Motors got robbed.

(Phoenix Motors is one of the Californian alternate-fuel manufactures which should earn the name of Little Three. They sell electricity powered trucks and SUVs as fleet vehicles, and IIRC, entered into their first big contract with Hawaii in January.)

[The Spartan]

Five thousand dollar computers with quadcore I7 chips, 4870x2's, six gigs of ram 24 inch monitors and terabytes of storage for 20k people still only gets you 100 million. A bit more sane systems(1000) plus laptops is still only forty million. So fine, super expensive chairs, backup chairs, guest chairs, couches for everyone, a higher end desktop and laptop for everyone and frigging leather massage chairs still only gets us up to around 100 million. Again I'm assuming this building has twenty thousand people working there.

Maybe the last 43 million is all for the director of the Homeland security to get his solid gold toilets and his own private F-18 for Xenu's sake.

Well then I'm stumped.

Maybe I'm being naive but there has got to be something we're not considering or that is being obfuscated by the word "furniture". Maybe the appropriate wording is $248 million to "furnish" the building. By which they're including things like dry wall, carpeting, tiling, lighting, art, coffee machines, refridgerators, microwaves, etc. Perhaps including installation/delivery.

[Teleros]

Well then I'm stumped.

Maybe I'm being naive but there has got to be something we're not considering or that is being obfuscated by the word "furniture". Maybe the appropriate wording is $248 million to "furnish" the building. By which they're including things like dry wall, carpeting, tiling, lighting, art, coffee machines, refridgerators, microwaves, etc. Perhaps including installation/delivery.

It's the government, therefore it pays more for everything.

Probably though you're right that it's including all the carpeting and whatnot... I also wonder if there place would require any specialist equipment that would end up costing the earth as well. What about some beefy servers, cooling systems for them (and backup power generators?) and whatnot? You could probably blow a few million of the $43m left on stuff like that.

[General Zod]

In which case the government could simply buy the car at the subsidized price. What's the problem? You're just excluding non-government uses of hybrid cars.

Who's excluding anything? All you're doing is replacing the vehicles federal employees use with hybrids, which presumably makes up a nice chunk of the market. In fact I'm relatively certain a subsidy for the general public to buy hybrids already exists.