Green Scheme in Wilmette

Wilmette Village Trustee Mike Basil makes a good point. The proposal to discount vehicle sticker fees for "green" cars is discriminatory. And this story made the Evanston Review too:

Cars that qualify for the discount, as a rule, cost significantly more, he says.

"It's a matter of economic fairness," he said last week. "Not everyone can afford to avail themselves of this discount. [snip]

"While purchasing a new car is well beyond the means of many residents in town, such a fact would only be more true of a $5,000 luxury enhancement (for) the hybrid version of a new car," Basil wrote in a memo to his peers on the Village Board. "At a time when there is a great deal of attention being paid to making Wilmette more affordable for low-income residents, having the poorest residents subsidize our affluent residents' new-car purchases only makes living in Wilmette less affordable."

Basil also points out that two "green" cars use more fuel on the road than one minivan carpool vehicle, which can carry more passengers. Why should the minivan be penalized?

And do smug star-bellied sneeches really need a monetary reward for their moral vanity? Isn't that cheating?

With all this in your face big brother intrusion, let's face it---the greens are reds.

Then there's the recent revelation of the Y2K Bug in NASA's global warming data, rendering the greenie global warming case mostly moot.

But if you still want to go green, have you hugged a Hummer today?