Should Congress pull plug on electric car subsidies

Supposedly the price of electric cars will come down as volumes increase, making the vehicles more affordable. But even if the federal tax credit increases from $7,500 to $10,000, as Obama has proposed, and other states mimic California by adding an additional $1,500 tax credit, Americans may not buy electric vehicles because of their shortcomings in size, comfort and range.

The surest way to guarantee a product's failure is to subsidize it. Over time, cars that succeeded in the marketplace have been those that were developed and commercialized without government involvement.

If a technology isn't capable of succeeding on its own economic merits, there's no amount of taxpayer support that will ever make it a commercial success.

Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics at the University of Michigan in Flint, and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (www.aei.org) in Washington.