Methinks Obama has been saving up some of his most forceful and effective ammunition on the stimulus bill for the end:
Right on!Now, I read the other day that critics of this plan ridiculed our notion that we should use part of the money to modernize the entire fleet of federal vehicles to take advantage of state-of-the-art fuel efficiency. This is what they called pork. You know the truth. It will not only save the government significant money over time, it will not only create manufacturing jobs for folks who are making these cars, it will set a standard for private industry to match.
And so when you hear these attacks, deriding something of such obvious importance as this, you have to ask yourself: Are these folks serious? Is it any wonder we haven’t had a real energy policy in this country?
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I would be in favor of integrating more fuel efficient vehicles over time, not sure if that's what this provision of the bill does, but not replacing them all at once. Not buying replacement vehicles until they are needed will save us money over time, not replacing the entire fleet at once. What happens when improved fuel efficiency models come out again? How often should we replace the entire fleet with these improved efficiency vehicles? It will create more of a demand, since the private sector has yet to create a high enough demand, which is definitely the intent of this provision. Granted this is hardly one of the more arguable provisions within the bill, which is why Obama highlighted this one to defend, to cover the more egregious provisions, as if 100% of the criticism is not justified.
Phased replacement over time is what's called for in the bill. He's not proposing that the government go out and replace everything next week. It will be good for the auto industry and will save the US government a lot of money on fuel costs. Obama of course needs to talk about specifics in the stimulus bill in order to make it relevant to people — just like the Grand Obstructionist Party is cherry picking out minute portions of the bill to demagogue