Stephen Moore’s Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #897 brings back memories of the Regional Transportation Authority referendum campaign in 1974.

The opposition was led by a bunch of us freshmen State Representatives.

One of the arguments I came up with was that the proposed 5% gasoline tax would force people who drove to and from work to subsidize those who took the train.

OK.

That’s obvious.

What was not obvious, and had to be dug out of U.S. Census data, was that the average McHenry County train commuter earned more than the average car driver.

Conclusion: the social engineers who dreamed up the scheme were promoting an income redistribution plan to further enrich the better-to-do.

Now comes information about the real cost of charging an electric vehicle from Stephen Moore:

EV Battery Recharging Costs the Equivalent of $17 a Gallon

Let’s see if we have this straight: Uncle Sam pays the automakers billions of dollars to produce EVs. Then they write a check for $7,500 to consumers who buy an EV and many states kick in up to another $5,000. Now, the government is paying to charge the batteries for the rich people who buy EVs.

On the pages of the NY Post and on the air of Fox Business, CTUP economist EJ Antoni had this alert: 

Including the charging equipment, subsidies from governments and utilities and other frequently excluded expenses, the true cost of charging an EV is equivalent to $17.33-per-gallon gasoline — but the EV owner pays less than 7% of that.

Over 10 years, almost $12,000 of costs per EV are transferred to utility ratepayers and taxpayers, effectively socializing the price of recharging an EV while keeping the benefits private.  

This is socialism for the rich: a transfer of costs from higher net-worth individuals to middle- and lower-income taxpayers.