I’ve got a great idea for a deficit reduction program. It would work similarly to the “cash for clunkers” program. Except this time instead of the government paying for your clunker vehicle, taxpayers could pay to have clunker politicians removed from office. If given this opportunity I am quite confident we would have entirely new leadership and a budget surplus in next to no time.
A classic win-win, don’t ya think?
The idea came to me after reading this article in the WSJ:
Remember “cash for clunkers,” the program that subsidized Americans to the tune of nearly $3 billion to buy a new car and destroy an old one? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared in August that, “This is the one stimulus program that seems to be working better than just about any other program.”
If that’s true, heaven help the other programs.
Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best “the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day’s gasoline use.” Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.
The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, “Economics in One Lesson,” you can’t raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.
The joke’s on us folks…
That’s actually pretty funny.
The idea might have been better if they actually made people buy AMERICAN cars. I think Japan is happy with the idea.
As much as I hate to follow ‘K-spawn’, in commentary.
Your idea is brilliant, John – too good. A Federal law should be written directing states to set up the conditions, but it won’t. The rules are made by the thieves, after all.
I don’t agree with the inset, cash for clunkers, commentary. It might be the truth but it doesn’t seem complete to me.
But I really like the cash for clunker statesmen, ‘recall’ idea and have even wondered how we might activate such a recall system enough to get everyone involved. Would love for some idea like that to gain some traction.
Maybe this could be your second profession, but harder to run from the ‘ville’.
BTW, Harry Reid’s Medicare gravy deal for Nevada was just approved. That’s not a liberal pork thing is it???? I just can’t wait till the crap hits the fan…….. It’s coming………….hide and watch……….. I hope so anyway, but in this environment there are no watchdog guarantees.
Nevada, Oregon, Michigan and maybe one other. States with 12% or more unemployment, apparently, which should be all of them if true numbers are counted………gimme a break here.
How, pray tell, is any interested citizen to have any faith at all in their government under such shenanigans, I ask? A pure un abashed re-election pot-sweetening move on Reid’s part.
Everyone is asked for comment, excepting K-spawn, that is, thank you. He might get forutneate to speak for him, even so.
I wasn’t enthralled with the Cash for Clunkers program but in the interest of fairness one misconception needs to be cleared up. The Cash for Clunkers program did help American Automakers. US auto sales plunged 22% after the program ended. The program helped them improve their market share by 3% climbing from 40 to 43%. The Asian market slipped from 52% to 46%. I know the gains weren’t much but it does refute the allegation that the program was a boon to the Asian market.
I pointed out in an earler comment that Ford out-sold both GM and Chrysler combined. Ford being the only automaker not taking goverment bailout money. I also mentioned it was the Asian market (Japanese)who got our tax dollars. If you can refute these facts feel free to do so.
Cash for clunkers.
TOP SELLERS
1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Toyota Camry
4. Ford Focus front-wheel drive
5. Hyundai Elantra
6. Nissan Versa
7. Toyota Prius
8. Honda Accord
9. Honda Fit
10. Ford Escape front-wheel drive
…
Senior administration official says Obama would send only as many troops to Afghanistan as needed to fight Al Qaeda — and, invite Taliban into political process.
It just keeps getting better each day. Only 3.3 years left and nobama.
Yikes.
My vote would be take the troops out of Iraq and have a surge in Afghanistan. Obama needs to listen to McChrystal and not Biden.
I don’t know how we are supposed to “win” though. I haven’t understood that for eight years in Iraq or Affhanistan. To me, we should have declared victory and gotten out about six years ago. Go in, kick some ass and say, “we will be back if you screw up again.”
With that said, if I was Obama, I would declare victory in Iraq, give credit to Bush and the surge and then have another surge in Afganistan, kick some serious ass for about six months and declare victory again and get back home.
We just can’t afford to stay there for another eight years.
But the fact is, we need to stay as long as it takes, otherwise our patient enemy will just out wait us.
We’ve been in Korea for 60 now and even though we couldn’t “afford” it, it’s hard to argue it has not been worth it…