Remember That 'Cash For Clunkers' Program?

How did that work out for you?



It’s not like there’s a market out there for Corvettes or anything like that. Or even a family who could have bought a used Volvo.

Anyway, the program is done for now and the numbers are in. And they are not good. C4C is functionally worse than the Broken Window parable. At least the kid broke the window on accident. The Clunker’s program encouraged people to purposely throw bricks through their windows, in a figurative way.

Cash for Clunkers was one of the more economically poor decisions in a long time

• By facilitating the purposeful destruction of the car’s engine, easily the most expensive part of the car.
• It eliminated the supply of secondary sales of said car.
• People would trade in good cars for the financial burden of a new car in the middle of the worst recession since Jimmy Carter.

Even by a green liberal standard, it was a bad policy. Used cars have already made their carbon footprint. By destroying the used car, the program had people buying new cars that came with a new carbon footprint. And when sodium silicate was poured into the engine, it would lubricate the pistons until it heated up and turned to glass, seizing the engine. If the program was really for the environment, recycling the engine and other parts would have been a better idea.

Not quite reduce, reuse and recycle.

Cross posted at The Richmond Liberty Alliance.

Sure, Now He's Worried About The Deficit. Updated and Bumped.

UPDATED: Found the current graph. Now with longer bars to indicate more debt.



Previously. . .
Keep in mind that:

• In 2007 and 2008, the Democrat party controlled both the Senate and the House.
• Barack helped with the budget for those two years.
• The Democrat controlled Congress helped craft TARP, all the bail outs and the Stimulus Package.
• Whatever Bills Obama signed into law at the start of the year, he helped create while he was a Senator that previous year.
• And he's said something like this before in the past and nothing has come of it. Far from it, in fact (from back in May of 09).

So now he's going to crack down on that pesky deficit. The same way the alcoholic will stop drinking after the liquor cabinet is empty.

Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning.

The president's plan, which the officials said was under discussion before this month’s Democratic election setbacks, represents both a practical and a political calculation by this White House.

On the practical side, Obama has spent more money on new programs in nine months than Bill Clinton did in eight years, pushing the annual deficit to $1.4 trillion. This leaves little room for big spending initiatives.
[. . .]
The big question for Obama – and the country – is whether the sudden concern about deficits will be more rhetoric than reality once his first State of the Union address concludes.

Nothing is stopping him now from trying to cut deficits. But seeing how he's never cut a budget in his life, only increase them, which can mean only one thing. He'll need to bring in more revenue, i.e., taxes. After all, this deficit is a crisis he 'inherited' and he needs to do something to fix the problem he created.

Quote For The Week: Indictment Of The Media Edition

But after reading the Washington Post's review of "Going Rogue" the other day and the reviewer's candid confession that she hadn't really had time to finish the book that she was writing so authoritatively about, we realized this is the latest thing in U.S. society and journalism.

Why bother reading any of it? Just talk about it.

Millions of Americans won't read "Going Rogue" and will think it's pretty good because they like SP. And millions more, like the Washington writer, are just as certain that it's conservative pop garbage, same as her. And they know this without cracking the thing open or turning page after page to the very end.

You don't even have to buy the book to know any of this.

So, a reviewer can just write what he/she thinks the book is or heard it is or wants it to be. And if no one else reads what they're writing about or reads anything they disagree with, who can challenge anybody on anything?

It's perfect for a hurried society, like Washington every day or the modern quadrennial presidential campaigns. People reciting at each other things they've heard from others.

This way nobody has to learn anything new or adjust what they're already certain of. Dumb is the new American smart.

Remember, We're 'The Extremists'

When you see videos like this, who are you going to believe? What the Left Wing Media says or what's in front of your very own eyes?

Fair. I Don't Think That Word Means What Nancy Pelosi Thinks It Means

Via Infidels Are Cool.



The proverbial 'Creeping Socialism' isn't creeping anymore as much as taking leaps and bounds.

Ace has more about the encroachment of our rights by Congress.

The left continues pounding the table, insisting that right-wingers are "paranoid" and "extremist" to call Obama a socialist, or to use totalitarian imagery in posters to protest his agenda. Why, it's just so not true! they bleat. You'd have to be a maniac like Sarah Palin to make these delusional claims! Why, it's like bad science-fiction!

Really?

Socialism never attends a party without an escort of coercive state behavior. It is a historic fact -- indeed, an economic fact -- that as the state seeks to regulate and control more and more economic activity, they must, of course, control more and more human activity.

Civics In Ten Minutes

It's a bit oversimplified but how much nuance can you get into studying governments throughout history in ten minutes? Stick with it for the entire length.



Donald Douglas has a bit more about the political spectrum here.

Barney Frank: Exposed!

Maybe 'Exposed' was a bad choice of words.

Thanks to Jim.

"Why Do You Have To Criminalize People To Coax Them Into A Plan That's Fabulous!"

From the floor of the House last Saturday before the vote to take over health insurance:


It passed thanks to the Blue Dogs (coalition of more centrist Democrats in the House).

The bone thrown to the Blue Dogs had a string on it so it could be yanked back.

Thanks to Ace for that last link.