[AlexanderB]

It feels like it, yes.

As a student, I'm barely scraping by on the money I make from work and the money my parents donate me. I'm told the wellfare program pays almost triple what I spend a month, but as far as I can tell I'm not eligible, as I 1: already have a job (even if its a couple hours a week), 2: am an able-bodied person, 3: not a single mom.

Talking about forcing to buy new cars, I 'had' to get rid of my mid 90's, 50+ mpg diesel econobox because the gov't decided that "old" diesel cars are bad. The replacement is a solid 25 mpg landbarge, but at least LPG is cheap and clean-burning, so I guess thats what they wanted?
Oh, and then dieselgate happened, also, research showed that the banning of the older diesel cars did nothing for the air quality, turns out 1: new cars emit just as much, 2: most particulate matter is brakes and tires, but instead of fixing the traffic lights, the current thought proces is that if you make a city completely unreachable by having it gridlocked forever, people will give up on cars eventually and take the public transport instead. I guess they'll carry their ladders and toolboxes to work in their purse or something, idk.