Why Trump’s Dishwasher Diatribe Matters

[Anti Federalist]

Why Trump’s Dishwasher Diatribe Matters

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/16/why-trumps-dishwasher-diatribe-matters/

I & I Editorial Board January 16, 2020

The left had another apoplectic fit when President Donald Trump started talking about dishwashers at his Milwaukee rally this week. How dare he focus on something so trivial when House Democrats are busy trying to remove him from office.

But Trump is on to something, and the fact that the liberal elites can’t understand what it is says more about them than it does about Trump.

“Anybody have a new dishwasher?” Trump asked the audience on Tuesday. “I’m sorry for that, it’s worthless. They give you so little water. … So what happens? You end up using it 10 times … then you take them out and do them the old fashioned way, right?”

Trump said that he’s “approving new dishwashers that give you more water so you can actually wash and rinse your dishes without having to do it 10 times.”

“It’s inelegant to talk about it, right? Right? Isn’t it inelegant? I’m talking about dishwashers.”

This isn’t the first time Trump has brought up the impact government energy efficiency mandates have had on dishwashers. But this time, the pundit class responded as if he’d just committed another impeachable offense.

“Donald Trump zeroed in on one of the great issues of our times: dry dishwashers,” says one. “Trump was impeached, but dishwashers that go ‘boom’ are on his mind,” says another.

Vox.com “explanatory” journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted that Trump’s dishwasher complaints “are nuts and suggest he’s never used one in his life.”

But the exuberant cheers at the rally suggest this issue resonates with those who do use this appliance every day. And for good reason.

Despite the sniffing of the left, dishwashers today don’t work well, making them a source of constant frustration for middle-class families who probably don’t know why they take hours to do a fairly poor job of washing dishes.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute compiled data on dishwasher cycle times since 1983, using numbers from Consumer Reports product tests. Back then, the average cycle time was a little more than one hour. By 2018, the average was close to three hours.

The chart CEI produced shows that with every new federal efficiency mandate since 1983, cycle times jumped. Why? Because the mandates increasingly limit how much water and electricity dishwashers can use, so manufacturers have had to make them run longer “to help compensate for the negative impact on cleaning performance associated with decreasing water use and water temperature,” according to a 2016 Department of Energy report.

CEI petitioned the DOE for relief from this madness, and in November the agency said it is working on a new rule that would let manufacturers make faster-cleaning dishwashers that don’t have to comply with the pile of federal mandates.

Imagine that. Consumers will then get to decide whether they value quality and convenience over relatively minor energy savings

Still, why does this matter to Trump?

Politically, it matters because it’s a way for Trump to connect with middle-class families. He comes across as a regular guy. Philosophically, it matters because it lets him expose what the out-of-control federal regulatory state is doing to the country in a way that directly connects with families. That’s why Trump touts his blocking of a federal ban on low-cost incandescent light bulbs, and why he attacks low-flow shower heads and toilets. (It’s worth noting that attorneys general from every deep blue state oppose Trump’s dishwasher rule.)

Not everybody understands that these annoyances are the result of mandates handed down by a few unelected bureaucrats sitting in cubicles in Washington, D.C. By exposing the link, Trump has a better chance of creating legions of small-government advocates than he would by lecturing audiences about Adam Smith.

Just as important, Trump’s dishwasher diatribe exposes just how out of touch today’s liberal elites are with middle America. The more they sneer about how nuts Trump is to bring dishwashers and lightbulbs up, the better Trump looks to the voters who will determine the outcome of the 2020 election.

[Anti Federalist]

Our Worser Half

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2020/01/16/our-worser-half/

By eric - January 16, 202014963

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Government is like a bad marriage you can’t get out of. An arranged bad marriage you didn’t even once upon a time think was a good idea that turned bad over time. You were forced into it – and you can’t leave it.

Just ask Mr. Lincoln.

So you end up doing your best to “make it work” – and are grateful for whatever small occasional concessions you can manage.

They are better than nothing, as the saying goes.

And yes – it could have been worse. For instance:

Our Worser Half was going to force us to buy nothing but hybrids and electric cars – by jacking up the price – via fines – of any new car that didn’t average at least 46.7 MPG – which is every car that isn’t a hybrid or an EV – by the 2026 model year.

This would have had a seismic effect on not just the cost of cars but also the choice of cars available come 2026. Less “efficient” models would become more scarce as well as more expensive – the one inevitably resulting in the other.

Instead, the arm-twisting will apparently be relaxed – somewhat. New cars will “only” be required to average 37 MPG by 2026. Those that don’t – which is almost all of them except hybrids – will still cost more.

But a bit less than they would have otherwise.

Be grateful?

Yes, surely. In the manner of Stalin’s chicken. It is of a piece with being grateful that the county “only” increased the tax assessment on your home by 3 percent this year instead of 5.

How about zero?

Never mind.

Our Worser Half has been decreeing MPG minimums – styled Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards – since the 1970s on the basis of a very strange and morally despicable argument, which is rarely – if ever – questioned.

It goes something like this:

The car companies must be forced by the government to offer what buyers are clamoring for – i.e., “fuel-efficient” cars – else they would force people to buy nothing but “gas guzzling” cars.

This is of course absurd, both historically, logically – and actually.

In the first place, the car companies can’t force anyone to buy anything – lacking the force to do so. All they can do is offer; it is up to us to buy – or not.

It is our Worser Half that relies upon force – to make us buy what we don’t want.

Its many “services,” for instance.

Interesting that our Worser Half never applies its own argument to itself.

Secondly, as long as there have been cars there have been “fuel-efficient” cars; the problem – from the standpoint of our Worser Half – is that not everyone wants them. Or rather, that they want something else more.

Perhaps more car rather than more MPGS. Or a more powerful car. Maybe a truck.

Mileage being one of many variables that are taken into consideration by most people but not the sole consideration. For many buyers, it is a secondary or even tertiary consideration.

It may not be a consideration at all.

This explains why no one has to be forced to buy, say, a Dodge Hellcat that averages 13 MPG. It also explains why the best-selling vehicle isn’t a 50-plus MPG hybrid like the Prius. It is a truck truck three-times the size of the Prius – the Ford F-150. It doesn’t get 50 MPG – or even 37 MPG.

But it can pull 10,000-plus pounds, carry five large men and a stack of 4×8 plywood sheets, too. Some people value this capability – even if it’s only used occasionally – more than they do the everyday capability to drive 50 miles-plus on a gallon of gas . . . in a small car that can’t pull anything and hasn’t got room fo five large men or even half a sheet of 4×8 plywood in the back.

It is ridiculous to claim – as our Worser Half does – that without the ol’ bayonet in the backside – “fuel efficient” vehicles like the Prius would be suppressed.

In fact, it’s exactly the other way around.

Our Worser Half is the one suppressing vehicles … that aren’t like the Prius.

The claim that the car companies are not building more vehicles like the Prius in spite of buyer demand for them is like saying that, absent a government mandate requiring it, the car companies would suppress air conditioning.

Of course, most people want air conditioning. Which is why it is not necessary to mandate it – or anything else that people want.

Like the Ford F-150, for instance.

It is necessary to mandate MPGs – because most people don’t want MPGs. More precisely, they want MPGs less than they want the other things mentioned earlier.Things like size, power and capability.

And this is what enrages our Worser Half.

Only “fuel efficient” vehicles must be available – regardless of the cost, in terms of money or choice.

Which brings us to the morally despicable part.

This business of our Worser Half decreeing any MPG minimums whatsoever. What the Hell? Who are these geeks? How did the mileage of our vehicles become any of their business?

It is of a piece with our Worse Half taking any of our money.

How about none?

We are grateful when our Worser Half takes a bit less – or decrees a bit less. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if the taking and decreeing just ended?