Posted on 08/03/2009 7:00:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
The White House, Congress and the news media may be giving the “cash for clunkers” program high marks , but -- as with just about every government program initiated -- there are unintended consequences.
The Consumers Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 (H.R. 1550) – otherwise known as the Cash for Clunkers bill – would offer a voucher worth up to $4,500 toward a new, more fuel efficient that achieves a fuel economy rating of 18 miles per gallon or less for the old vehicle that has been insured for a year and is in "drivable condition."
Simply put, owners of old, gas-guzzling automobiles are getting more than four grand from the Feds if they trade in their clunkers for a brand new vehicle. One of the provisions of this taxpayer-funded give away is the destruction of the clunkers even if they are still functional. In other words, the government denial of $500 jalopies to young, first-time car buyers, who don't have wealthy parents, and those minimum wage workers whom liberals always claim they wish to help.
The car business is part of the trickle-down economy so vilified by progressives: A person buys a brand new car. Then within 3 to 5 years they trade it to purchase another new car. That 3 to 5 year old used car is then sold to person who wants a nice car, but doesn't want to take the hit on buying a new one. They drive it for 3 to 5 years then trade it or sell it.
That car is now 6 to 10 years old with 70k to 150k miles on the odometer. It is the perfect car for the person who doesn't have a lot of money or access to credit.
Well, thanks to Obama he is implementing a plan that will hurt the blue-collar workers, newly licensed kids, and others, who may not view the ownership of an expensive car as a priority. In addition, someone owning a 10-year old Toyota will not have to pay sky-high automobile insurance premiums since they will probably take out cheaper policies that only cover liability.
Car dealers, the people the "cash for clunkers" program was designed to help, told reporters that a lot of consumers who came into their showrooms did not fully understand the program, but that didn't stop them from taking advantage of possessing new cars with the usual chumps -- American taxpayers picking up the tab for the down payments.
On the other hand, these same dealers told these same reporters that they were concerned over whether or not the government would actually reimburse them for the discounts they gave customers. These dealers claim that they gave discounts to customers who traded in their supposed junk heaps for a big chunk of change -- between $3,500 and $4,500 -- toward the purchase of new cars and trucks.
Needless to say, the $1 billion dollars allocated for the program has already been depleted, according to new reports. Reacting to the positive reaction of the auto industry, dealers and customers, there is the promise of another billion being allocated.
Not all political leaders are enthusiastic with this government giveaway. For example, Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) believes all the hoopla over the "cash for clunkers" could be premature.
On Friday, Rep. Hoekstra heavily criticized the bureaucracy managing the "cash for clunkers" program.
"The red tape involved in ‘Cash for Clunkers’ is creating a major backlog in providing rebates to dealers and causing used cars to pile up," Hoekstra said. "If the government cannot manage a $1 billion automobile program, how can we expect it to manage a $1.5 trillion health care program?"
Hoestra's remarks followed the House's voting to include an additional $2 billion for the original $1 billion program. Much of the money has been committed, but the government has failed to pay out a vast majority of it because of the bureaucracy involved. Examples include the 21-page paperwork process, one hour to complete one form and rejections on claims for no apparent reason. The customers drive off the lot with their new vehicles while the dealers get the shaft.
"The program needs major improvement for it to work effectively," Hoekstra said. "Cash for clunkers looks good on paper, but its delivery has so far been a disaster for dealerships."
Other questions that remain unanswered includes: What happens when a customer cannot keep up his or her car payments and the monthly insurance premiums that may total $1000 per month or more. Owners of clunkers usually own them because they cannot afford to purchase, insure and maintain expensive vehicles.
Why aren't the news media asking the lawmakers and Obama such questions instead of worrying about how much more taxpayers' money they can give away?
this is like when FDR destoryed food to fight price deflation. Yes thats right, while ppl are starving, food were destroyed
What is even more fascinating is how the Obama administration and his Democrat cronies on the Hill continue to reward bad behavior and poor decision making.
Who has the mortgage bail-out favored the most? People who bought homes during the ridiculous housing bubble. Who has the cash-for-clunkers bill favored the most? Those who irresponsibly purchased gas-guzzlers and SUVs over the past years.
What message does this send to our citizens? Go ahead and make bad decisions because Obama will take care of you. As a matter of fact, he will REWARD your bad decision!!
“If the government cannot manage a $1 billion automobile program, how can we expect it to manage a $1.5 trillion health care program?”.....
The Clunkers in the White House can’t manage jack!....
And now - as with the housing crisis - people are saddling themselves with debt they can’t afford. Within a year, we’re going to see calls for a government program to help these poor people that find themselves “underwater” on a car loan.....
Even so-called "conservatives" are missing the primary point in this debate about health care and "clunkers," and all the other "goodies" being doled out with money stolen from the pockets of working people ("rich" and poor).
America's Founders would be appalled to think that Senators and Congressmen, sworn to support the Constitution, would be even entertaining the idea of such broad government control and "taking" of the earnings of the citizens. Instead, they, and "We, the People" must be equipped to distinguish between the principles that would keep America free and prosperous and the false premises that will enslave her. And, they had better begin articulating those principles, or liberty will be swallowed up by power-hungry despots in both Parties.
Accommodating tyranny by failing to call it what it is is dangerous. We need a leader whose words are strong and courageous and based in the principles of our Declaration of Independence. American citizens need to wake up to the counterfeit ideas and false "hopes" offered by politicians who use "promises," just as the rest of us use "currency."
They buy votes with "promises" in order to gain power to themselves and their ilk. Then, when "hopes" are dashed, "the people" they have promised to help (the naive, the poor, the ignorant--even the "educated" who are ignorant of liberty vs. tyranny) find themselves enslaved, working for those who have purchased their power in the most despicable manner--by offering "hope and change." Thus it has ever been.
The people who founded America were not so "dumbed down." Hear two of them:
"It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle [usurpation of power] and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much . . . to forget it." - James Madison
" . . . nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the penshioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, lusury, foppery, selfishness, meanness and downright venality swallow up the whole society." - John Adams
Further, it was not just the founding leaders who were well-informed about their constitution and approaching threats to its protections. By the Year 1830, when the French jurist Tocqueville traveled America, he wrote admiringly of the citizenry, observing that even the backwoodsman was far more well-read and informed than those in other parts of the world, and that they understood their Constitution, and had with them a Bible and a newspaper. Sadly, beginning in the mid-20th Century, our "government" schools removed the ideas of liberty from the nation's textbooks, largely under the guise of a counterfeit idea of "separation of church and state," and the citizenry is uninformed as to the difference between tyranny and liberty.
Of course, what Edmund Burke, in his 1775 Speech on Conciliation, had called the American colonists' "fierce spirit of liberty" was still alive then in the hearts of citizens and and they were able to "augur misgovernment at a distance and sniff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze." Burke had further observed that their religion, "under a variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of liberty" underlay their devotion to freedom.
Perhaps it is time that American citizens of the Year 2009 begin to, in the words of Burke, "sniff the approach of tyranny."
So why isn't this also applied to this stupid Cash For Clunkers program?
Oops, I guess that's another little item that escaped oversight because no one bothered to read the bill.
What's the use of driving a new car and having the burden of the monthly payments (which you can barely afford and has HIGHER insurance payments as well) versus driving an alleged CLUNKER and having NO car payments??
The old saying "Dont put your hat where you cant reach it" seems lost in these modern days!!
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