Electric vehicle tax credit may rise - The budget President Barack Obama proposed Monday would increase the tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles -- from the $7,500 maximum to a $10,000 maximum -- and expand the credit to other "advanced technology vehicles."

How in the world does one justify taking money from some taxpayers to subisidize the purchase of a vehicle by other taxpayers, a vehicle very few are buying and virtually none would by without the tax credit.  There is no excuse and I would doubt the Constitutional validity of such actions.

Electric vehicles are NOT non-polluting, especially if one considers the chemicals in the batteries and manufacture thereof.  Putting that aside, the only way an electric vehicle would have no emissions is if the owner charged it with his own wind turbine or solar panels.  if one charges it off the grid and that grid has any fossil power operating during the charging process, then one has added a load that requires more power from the fossil facility.  The emissions from that fossil facility are therefore the emissions of the vehicle and the fuel efficiency of that fossil facility applies to the vehicle.  This also means the touted 100 or 110 mile per gallon gasoline equivalent is not true either.  Using road test data pulled from Internet sources, the mpgge of a Nissan Leaf at highway speeds and average fossil power plant efficiency of 35% gives the Leaf a gas mileage equivalent to about 30MPG.  My wife had a Mercury Mariner with a four cylinder engine that got 28MPG at highway speeds and could carry a whole lot more than a Leaf or Volt.

Where in the world does the President or DoE get the justification to take tax money from everyone else to pay for some well-to-do idealist to buy a technology toy so he can pat himself on the back while driving his luxury car or superduty pickup truck?  This is just the administration's payback to the UAW using our money.