North Dakota’s Proposed Bailout For Domestic Automakers To Be Reviewed This Week

And it remains a stupid idea:

BISMARCK – The bill that would eliminate excise taxes for purchasing or leasing new vehicles from Ford, General Motors or Chrysler was heard before the House Transportation Committee on Friday. Rep. Lisa Wolf, D-Minot, is the primary sponsor for the bill, which would eliminate sales and use tax on purchasing or leasing new Chrysler, Ford or GM vehicles for a year.
“I have been told over and over again that every new Ford, Chrysler or General Motors vehicle sold in our state makes a difference to the Big Three,” Wolf said. “They need vehicles to sell. Each and every one makes a difference. North Dakota can make a difference and we are in a very unique position to do so.”

Wolf talks of helping Detroit’s “big three” by creating a tax incentive for the purchase of their products (as if they’re not getting enough help from Washington with our tax dollars), but at whose expense does that incentive come?
A tax incentive is only going to matter to those already in the market for a car. I doubt that many people not already planning on buying a car are going to hear of this tax break and suddenly decide to buy one, so this is only going to influence people who would have bought a vehicle anyway. Now it might make them buy a domestically-made car instead of a foreign car, but doesn’t that hurt North Dakotans who work with foreign made cars?
I wonder what the sales people and mechanics who sell and service foreign-made cars did to deserve such treatment from the North Dakota legislature? Did they not contribute enough money to the campaign of these legislators, and so now they must suffer a sales advantage for their competitors mandated by state law?
Seems a bit unfair to me.
Protectionism has no place in a free society.