Governmental Incompetence: Cash for Clunkers

I can understand sticking by your ideological guns and all, but I don't understand anyone defending the cash for clunkers program.

Everyone can recall that when it was first rolled out, it ran out of money much faster than Congress predicted. Then American car makers didn't receive the brunt of the spending (though with Toyota's being made in San Antonio and Ford being made in Mexico, that may be a moot point). And, then there were the dealerships that "sold" the cars but didn't get paid by the government like promised and were put into financial dire straits of sorts and STILL haven't been paid months later.

And now, news is emerging that, despite the astronomical number being claimed on the government run website Cars.gov of 700,000 cars being sold due to the program, it probably instigated more like 125,000 sales (that's a 560% overstatement), not to mention that for each of those stimulus-y purchases, it cost we the American tax payer $24,000 for each car - that's over 5 times the max $4,500 government rebates.

So, the government spends 3 Billion dollars so that 125,000 new cars can be sold, claims it's a whopping success despite its terrible execution which lead to the program being scrapped, then totally, purposefully, misrepresents the numbers on their .gov website.

This coming on the heels of what I posted to as "bad" earlier, i.e. the news that the number of jobs created or saved by the stimulus was actually overstated by several thousand.

These are the people who refer to a bankrupt program, medicare, as an indicator of success. And now they want to run healthcare? My God...the incompetence of politicians is unbelievable

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Good.

Bad.

Ugly.

Ayers-Heads

Some people still believe Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Dreams From My Father. Luckily for us they write HILARIOUS, detailed articles articulating their reasoning for our amusement.

I hope no one finds out Stokely Carmichael wrote personal statement for law school admission before he died.

Joe Lieberman Just Wants Attention

He just can't pass up an opportunity to try to screw Democrats, and he can't even keep his reasons straight for why he opposes the public option he used to support. The public option will lower premiums because it will be competing with private insurers for the same customers. Private insurers are free to raise their rates to appease providers but it doesn't seem like a very smart business model.

It just sucks we have to live with him as a senator for four more years.

Debts, of all kinds.

Here's a good article regarding the general concept of "debt" as it applies to the Obama Administration's policies on finance, politics, energy, and foreign relations. Yes it's conservative, but I believe the author's comments, principally on the precarious national debt situation, are mostly common sense and well founded.

Because if the country goes broke we all lose.

BASEBALL: World Series '09 Game 1

Tonight is game 1 of the World Series between the National League Philadelphia Phillies and the American League New York Yankees. The Phillies won the World Series last year and are going for two in a row; the Yankees haven't been since 2003. And by National League allegiance default, I'm rooting for the Phillies. Let's go Phillies!!!

While We're On the Subject...

...another one of my favorite recent commercials:

"I don't agree with his Bart-killing policy, but I do agree with his Selma-killing policy"

John Zogby is a whore.

hehehe...

Something I can agree with...sorta.

Although I'm innately skeptical when the government gets involved in anything - because they generally muck it up (medicare was projected to cost $10M, ended costing 10 times that...woops!) - I can agree with Senator Joe Lieberman's cautious approach to healthcare reform and the hot potato that is the public option.