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There’s
been no shortage of comments this week
on the latest government giveaway, the
so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program.
Essentially, if you have a car that
meets the government’s specifications,
they will give you between $3500 and
$4500 credit on a new car that meets the
government’s specifications. The name of
the program is somewhat of a misnomer.
There is no actual cash and your car
isn‘t necessarily a clunker. The plan is
to stimulate the economy and help prop
up the automobile industry, plus it’s
supposed to “save the planet” by getting
your low gas mileage vehicle off the
road and into the junk yard, while
putting you into an Obama approved piece
of tin that gets better gas mileage and
squashes nicely into a compact wad in
case of an accident with a
Volkswagen.
Originally, the Democrats wanted a mere
$4 billion for this plan, but had to
settle for a measly $1 billion. One
could argue that this scheme has been a
success because it was supposed to last
into November. However, they blew
through the billion dollars in six days.
Presently they want another $2 billion
to keep the program going—maybe for
another two weeks.
Critics
say it isn’t really much of a success
since the money the government is giving
away belongs to taxpayers—that’s you and
me. If I was in the market for a new
car, and I wanted a tiny car, then I
might consider taking advantage of the
program. As it is, I’ll keep my Dodge
Magnum. I need something that will haul
me, the wife, my music keyboard and
amplifier.
The main
complaint about the program is that the
trade-ins we are paying $4500 for are
being destroyed. The engines are being
disabled and the bodies are being
crushed. While this gets these nasty old
gas guzzlers off the road, it also
deprives the used car market of
serviceable vehicles that poorer folks
or those with insufficiently good credit
who can’t afford a new car can buy. Some
people can never afford a new car.
Kevin
McCullough wrote in Town Hall Daily,
“Imagine the government making an
estimable promise of enormous
proportion. Imagine the government
pledging a promise so big that it would,
in fact, as they would argue, actually
save an entire sector of the economy.
Imagine in doing so, that the same
government promises blind fairness,
trust, and integrity in the process.
Imagine the government assuming the
significant portion of funding such a
program off of the hard sweat labor you
and I commit to everyday. Imagine this
program pledging complete utopia in
helping to restore a struggling economy,
even if the sector it was addressing was
a largely insignificant part of the
economy. And imagine if, after
promising this program would last for a
long period of time, it ran out of
actual cash in about 1/16th of the time
they pledged it would work.
Now
imagine if that program dealt with
something as serious and intricate to
the daily lives of Americans as the
provision of our health care.
Oh, but
not to worry, health care is still a
ways off. No, we're talking about a
program that uses our tax dollars to
purchase cars that can not be resold,
and that no one will drive, but instead
be taken directly to the nearest junk
yard and crushed.”
Another thing that bothers me is that
the funds for this giveaway isn’t coming
out of the $700 or so billion so-called
stimulus package, which the
administration is still sitting on. This
is new money—money we don’t have. It is
either being borrowed from China or
being printed. It would make more sense
to finance this program from the money
already allocated for the purpose of
stimulating the economy—money they
aren’t planning to spend until just
before the next election. Moreover, it
would be better for the economy overall
if these kinds of giveaways included a
much wider segment of the population. It
would be just fine if they gave my part
of my tax money to me and let me spend
it on something I want.
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