It's tempting to call the shameful taxpayer subsidy for electric cars - vehicles that are unaffordable for all but a small number of wealthy Americans - this nation's costly little secret.

Once again, the regulators in California have decided to lead the nation in terms of vehicle emission standards, proposing to require that 15.4 percent of all vehicles sold by 2025 must be electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars, or (currently non-existent) fuel cell cars.

Wherever else the status quo ante may reign, the Obama administration has brought change to the tradition of sending foreign dignitaries home with lovely parting gifts.

The primary drivers of our growing debt burden are the “Big 3” entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yet as part of the debt ceiling deal that created sequestration when the Super Committee failed, politicians effectively fenced off nearly two-thirds of the federal budget and the main source of our over-spending. 

Let’s say that you were a politican with a GM Volt and turned it into an icon of your administration. And let’s also observe that despite giving people (most of whom are wealthy) a whopping $7,500 subsidy to buy a $40,000 car, your union- and government-controlled car company couldn’t sell enough of them to justify keeping the assembly line open. What would you do?

Americans should demand steering wheels.

The private sector is entirely capable of developing EVs and other new automotive technologies without the need for subsidies.

The future is on the way.  Leading-edge innovators, we are assured, have already moved on, and are earnestly focusing on the just the sort of problems - manufacturing, energy, transportation (and I'd add healthcare) - that urgently require imaginative solutions.