The American Spectator : Clunkering Down

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Clunkering Down

By Doug Bandow on 8.28.09 @ 6:07AM

Finally, a successful government program. Time to expand it in every direction.

"Cash-for-Clunkers" is over. Finally, a successful government program. Offer people $3 billion to buy new cars, and wonder of wonders, they rush to grab the $4500 checks. Uncle Sam had to shut down the program early since it ran out of money. President Barack Obama called the initiative "successful beyond anybody's imagination."

But now some in the auto industry are worried about the inevitable drop in sales, since the cash giveaway caused most everyone -- at least, anyone interested in free money -- to accelerate their purchase plans. Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of the automotive research group Edmunds.com, observes: "Nice party, but the hangover is awful."

There's also an impending downturn in the auto repair industry. Fewer used cars to sell and service. Fewer parts to trade. Moreover, there have been and will continue to be fewer other goods and services sold. After all, if you rushed to buy a new car, there's a good chance you had to put off some other purchases.

The green eyeshade folks among us say the government shouldn't waste money like this in the future. But in the new ultra-Keynesian, post-budget deficit age, we need to think outside of the box. We need to expand the ambit of "Cash-for-Clunkers."

Let's start big. The housing market remains in the doldrums. There's a huge inventory of new and used homes pressing down prices, an excess capacity that threatens to flood the market at the faintest price uptick, and a lot of old, energy inefficient -- and sometimes ugly -- older dwellings. So why not a housing "Cash-for-Clunkers" program? Trade in your old, environmentally poor house for a brand new, energy efficient home and get a voucher for the value of your current property, plus $50,000. The developer would be responsible for putting the wrecking ball to your old residence; the government would keep the land for subsequent resale.

Then there should be "Cash-for-Clunkers" for home furnishings. Uncle Sam should pass out checks to anyone who trades in his wasteful furnace, heat pump, air conditioner, fan, washer, dryer, fridge, oven, dish washer, microwave, toaster, can opener, coffee maker, television, DVD player, radio, CD player, light, vacuum cleaner, computer, or other home appliance. (There's currently a modest rebate program, with no trade-in requirement, for some major new appliances. We need to think more creatively.) Sellers would render the goods inoperative while the federal government, in another job-creating program, would collect and dispose of the trade-ins.

With the rise of the Kindle, online books are now a reality. So we need a "Cash-for-Clunkers" program for wasteful old books, which have occasioned the death of so many trees. Buy a Kindle and get a $20 check for every book you turn in while purchasing the new online version. Amazon.com would be responsible for creating central collection points, where you would dump your book, after tearing it in half to render it unusable. A similar program should be undertaken for newspapers -- buy the Kindle and cancel your New York Times/Washington Post/Local Mullet Wrapper subscription, and get a check.

"Cash-for-Clunkers" also could be adapted for the antique and collectibles markets. A great deal of money, time, and resources are wasted as people visit antique shops and troll online for goods produced long ago and therefore the production of which creates no jobs today. Turn in your antique painting, chess set, silver service, china cabinet, stein, armoire, jewelry, and more, and the government will pay you the value of your item plus provide a voucher for ten percent of the purchase price of a modern replacement. Uncle Sam would take title of the goods, for possible display at the Smithsonian. Constructing several new buildings to house the government's new acquisitions would generate additional jobs.

There also should be "Cash-for-Clunkers" for old clothes and shoes. Who knows how many leisure suits still clutter up old closets? Think of all the out-of-style dresses that women hang onto, hoping that the clothes will come back into fashion. Turn in those tattered Bermuda shorts and sadly aged pumps and get a check to buy replacements. Not only will jobs be created, but Americans will leap ahead of Europeans to lead the fashion parade.

The "Cash-for-Clunkers" concept could be used for airplanes. With the downturn in air travel there is a surplus of older, less fuel-efficient aircraft. Orders for new planes have been reduced as a result. The government should provide a (large) check whenever an airline trades in an old aircraft for a new (preferably Boeing) plane. The discards could be used by the Pentagon for target practice. We'd have a stronger national defense as well as less pollution, reduced fuel consumption, and more jobs.

Finally, "Cash-for-Clunkers" could be used to eliminate the build-up of old, fatty, and calorie-filled snack products in cabinets and refrigerators across America. Bring in your potato chips or M&Ms and get a check for their value, plus a coupon for use towards the purchase of apples, carrots, or Brussels sprouts. Surrendered foods would be given to the Surgeon General for use as part of a broad-ranging educational campaign against obesity.

The end of the "Cash-for-Clunkers" program bespeaks a lack of vision. Paying people to destroy their old cars was a stroke of genius. Let's expand it to the rest of the economy.

And why stop with economics? Let's also apply the concept to Capitol Hill. Toss out your clunker of a congressman and then -- and only then -- get some federal pork for your district. Talk about a "Cash-for-Clunkers" program that would benefit America!

topics:
Something for Nothing, Free Lunch Initiatives, Friends of Money Grows on Trees

About the Author

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (30) | Leave a comment

jhenry| 8.28.09 @ 6:49AM

You don't need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase

Jhenry
Blogger
www.cashforclunkersfacts.info
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.info

Michael L. Hauschild| 8.28.09 @ 8:04AM

You are forgetting several manifestations of "Big Government" when you make sales predictions.
1. Expanded government (means more vehicles for more bureaucrats)
2. The bidding process will contain the criteria, GM and Chrysler only.
Your tax dollar has bailed them out, your tax dollar will support them by monopoly mandate.

EricR| 8.28.09 @ 8:26AM

This is genius! Some of us were sore because we'd already taken personal responsibility (e.g. buying high-mileage un-fun car, weatherizing own modest home, etc.) only to have government give our cash to others who didn't.

But if we just expand the scope of "clunkers" we’ll surely be able to find an area in every life that has suffered personal neglect or even irresponsibility, and use other people’s cash to close the gap.

Eureka! I’ve found mine: I’ve really been neglectful of providing a decent vacation for my family. While tenured radicals get paid a salary to tour Tuscany for half a year on my dime, and government employees jet to Vegas seminars on my paycheck, my poor family puts up with little one-week getaways within driving distance because Dad is too busy working and paying taxes and saving for retirement etc.

Our vacations have been real clunkers. I demand a scoop of my neighbor’s cash to get my family a cruise! My children deserve to go to Disney once in their little lifetimes! My wife and I deserve a month to dawdle in Parisian cafes! Fork it over!

Wow, this feels really good. Note to self: quit taking care of stuff, wait for government to give it, or you’ll just get screwed when they raid your paycheck on behalf of your feckless neighbor.

Video Savant| 8.28.09 @ 8:41AM

I think that this latest government giveaway concept needs an all-encompassing label of derision.

Therefore, I humbly submit my suggestion: "Cash from Plonkers"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonker

Of course, I'm leaning toward the "Only Fools and Horses" meaning of the "plonker," but considering the fact that it's the usual clueless and immoral liberals behind these programs, I'm not entirely ruling out the share-your-girlfriend-widely definition either.

And, of course, the recently deceased Sen. Kennedy was a first-rate plonker who skillfully over his 70+ years managed to encompass all aspects of the popular meanings of the word.

Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 8.28.09 @ 8:43AM

I know you’re just trying to be sarcastic here, but don’t give them any ideas. They just might like some of your suggestions here, and next thing you know, say goodbye to a few Billion dollars more of Taxpayer’s money. Their green eyes of envy knows no boundaries, lets not put anymore notions into their brains to feed their eternal addiction.

Ned S.| 8.28.09 @ 11:30AM

We should just cut to the chase and change the name of the whole boondoggle to,
"Cash For Freedom."
You go in a sign a few papers before your identity is taken away and walk out with a government credit card allowing you to buy whatever it will purchase.
If the item you want is not approved of the card won't work, if it is, bingo it's yours.

Zefram Cochrane| 8.28.09 @ 12:08PM

Peter Schiff wrote a very similar article last week, in which he sarcastically proposed a new 'Dough for Dumps' program: http://www.europac.net/pschiff.....p?id=17052

It's great that so many commentators are trashing the program, but Mr. Bandow should give credit if he was inspired by that original article.

Regards,
Z

Big Leo| 8.28.09 @ 12:15PM

Turn in my old leisure suit? Never! As soon as I do, they'll come back in style.

Cash for Clunkers| 8.28.09 @ 6:32PM

Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him
by Justin Rood

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.

Bill Leonard, head of the government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman's staff that Cheney's office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman.

In pointed letters released today by Waxman, ISOO's Leonard twice questioned Cheney's office on its assertion it was exempt from the rules. He received no reply, but the vice president later tried to get rid of Leonard's office entirely, according to Waxman.

Leonard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a statement e-mailed to the Blotter on ABCNews.com, Cheney spokeswoman Megan McGinn said, "We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law."

As director of the tiny, 25-person Information Security Oversight Office, Leonard is responsible for keeping track of the nation's secrets and making sure they are properly protected.

For the first two years of the George W. Bush administration, Cheney's office complied with a presidential order that requires officials to report statistics on the number of documents it classifies and declassifies.

Since 2003, however, Cheney's office has refused to submit the data to ISOO. And when ISOO inspectors tried in 2004 to schedule a routine inspection of the vice president's offices, they were rebuffed, Waxman's letter claims.

Other White House offices, including the National Security Council, did not object to similar inspections, according to Waxman.

"Serious questions can be raised about both the legality and advisability of exempting your office from the rules that apply to all other executive branch officials," Waxman said in his letter to the vice president, and asked him to explain why he felt the rules didn't apply to him and his staff and how he was protecting classified information in his office.

Former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was recently convicted on several counts of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from the leak of the identity of former covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, Waxman noted, and in 2006, former Cheney aide Leandro Aragoncillo pleaded guilty to sharing classified U.S. documents with foreign nationals. Aragoncillo also worked under former Democratic Vice President Al Gore, who complied with ISOO's requests.
Copyright © 2007 ABCNews Internet Ventures

Marc Jeric| 8.28.09 @ 6:35PM

Sir: I read how popular is this 3 billion dollars program for junking those old clunkers in favor of new, environmentally sound cars, and how it is giving a big boost to the moribund car industry. Following the same thought - how about reviving the moribund housing industry? I have this idea (which I pass freely to our Congress) about burning say 200,000 older houses and then giving $100,000 to the burned-out families toward the purchase of a new house, environmentally sound and green, of course. Wouldn't that give a tremendous boost to our housing industry! This new program would also reduce our carbon footprint. And it would cost only $20 billion, about a one-fortieth of the present stimulus bill. Both amounts, for clunkers and old houses, then would cost a total of $23 billion, to be paid by the yet unborn future taxpayers - but then who cares - the crisis is now. This economic principle was explained some 200 years ago by the French economist Bastiat; but why would our Congress bother with reading those ancient texts?
Note - this proposal of mine is a joke - right? In the same spirit - how about reviving the economy by bombing New York and Washington?

Ted| 8.29.09 @ 12:07AM

Since the cash for clunkers program paid $3500-$4500 for each turned in vehicle, and since the program purportedly created 500,000 new vehicle sales, only $2 billion of the $3 billion allocated to the clunkers program were actually spent--assuming that the average clunker turn in value was $4000. Perhaps we could use the left over $1 billion to fund some of the programs that the author suggests. Oh wait, a better idea would be to return the $1 billion to the treasury and claim a 33% savings, less administrative fees.

chen| 8.29.09 @ 1:35AM

Since the cash for clunkers program paid $3500-$4500 for each turned in vehicle, and since the program purportedly created 500,000 new vehicle sales, only $2 billion of the $3 billion allocated to the clunkers program were actually spent--assuming that the average clunker turn in value was $4000. http://www.theaf1shoes.com/ nike af1 shoes
http://www.dunksbsite.com/ nike dunk sb shoesPerhaps we could use the left over $1 billion to fund some of the programs that the author suggests. Oh wait, a better idea would be to return the $1 billion to the treasury and claim a 33% savings, less administrative fees.

Etiquette Man| 8.29.09 @ 12:42PM

Ned S.

"Cash for Freedom" indeed!

I laughed out loud, but of course it was gallows humor. What other kind can there be in the Age of Obama?

Well-said, and sadly true.

Best,

Gw| 8.29.09 @ 2:28PM

You know, since we're in so much debt I have a great idea!!!! It just came to me while reading this excellent piece extolling the glorious "Cash for Clunkers" program our glorious chairman Obama came up with. Anyways, since we're in so much debt we should just print more money to pay for everything!!! We could also use the increase of printed money to give to poor people so they could afford their health care!!! We would no longer be in debt!!! Things would necessarily get soooooo much cheaper since more people have more money so a $20,000 car today would only be like $5,000 since we would all have 4X (or more) the money we do.........

Michael L. Hauschild| 8.29.09 @ 5:40PM

Rest assured (not something nebular as hope) I am funding a “government change” program. It is called “Funding for Challengers.”

Cyril| 8.29.09 @ 8:35PM

Has anyone noticed that the main group who will be far worse off after "cash for clunkers" ... is the poor? When all these low price but drivable cars are destroyed, there will be nothing for folks who can only afford to buy a clunker that costs under $2000. Great! Obama sticks it to the little guy!Liberals only like the poor if they stay poor.

diesel jeans| 8.30.09 @ 10:14PM

This is a great piece. Very thought provoking. I like the sort of ending that leaves it opn to personal input. Makes it work for just about everyone I think. Nicely done! I’ll subscribe.

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Marc Jeric| 8.31.09 @ 4:03AM

There are several million refugees from various former communist countries living now in the USA as citizens. Please ask a representative number of them if they see the ongoing establishment of a communist regime here as real.In support of this thesis I cite the following facts:
1) We have a President whose entire career has been as a communist organizer, but with no paper trail left behind him - no college transcripts, phony birth certificate, no old passports, no trail of his finances;
2) We have a system of local soviets - i.e. community organizations - financed directly by Obama through the $9 billion in the so-called stimulus bill;
3) These local soviets are supported by the SEIU, a communist-led union of mainly government employees financed by multi-million dollar stream of union dues; teacher unions collaborate closely with both ACORN and SEIU;
4) We have now in the White House a central group of "czars" - more properly called komissars - in extra-constituional charge of some 34 different faces of our society; almost all of these komissars are actual or former members of the Communist Party USA, or radicals of different revolutionary hues, or outright racists;
5)the communist program of nationalization is well advanced: automobile industry (GM and Chrysler), banks, mortgage companies (Fannie and Freddie); the government program of further nationalizations is under way - health care industry, insurance industry, electric utilities, coal mining, mass transportation (rail and air), oil industry.
6)There is only one thing missing in ensuring the failure of any possible people's resistance - and that is setting up community organizations or soviets within the National Guard and the military, and actual arming of the ACORN brownshirts and SEIU thugs (for reasons of self-defense, of course).
7)This deepening economic crisis will continue to worsen, by design, with growing unemployment and terrific inflation, thus giving reasons to the government to undertake further marxist measures to "stabilize the crisis".
Our Community Organizer-in-Chief is completely aware of his program and is proceeding calmly with its execution while showing his smirking face that must remind everybody of a modern-day Julius Caesar looking down on his subjects.
Yes - our political reporters and commentators: ask us the refugees from communism about all this!

Marc Jeric| 8.31.09 @ 4:13AM

It appears that nobody in government has read the old French economist Frederic Bastiat of some 200 years ago. This program "cash for clunkers" was demasked then as futile and even economically disastrous. For that increase of 3 billion in public debt and another increase of some 15 billion in private debt has pre-emptied the equivalent consumption of 18 billion in new products.
If this economic theory were valid - then we could revive the moribund housing industry by burning, say, 3 million existing houses; the the government will then give every homeless family $100,000 toward the purchase of a new home - better insulated, environmentally friendlier, etc. While we are at how about raking over the Interstate Freeway system and the rebuilding it.... Sorry, I am out of breath when faced with the utter stupidity of our ruling classes.

MitchB| 8.31.09 @ 1:04PM

Well done, Doug Bandow! Great way to illustrate what's so wrong with Cash for Clunkers.

With almost 50% of Americans soon paying NO taxes, let's act pre-emptively and provide for those people BEFORE they wind up needing it.
We need a Cash for Flunkers program. All those people who flunk high school exams, or any for that matter, are going to need cash in the future, relative to the people who pass. Why wait for these people to find their way to the public dole?
Identify a flunker, and after he signs a statement promising to vote Democratic in exchange for moderate yearly stipend, you also get a 10% finders fee for finding the guy!

Grandpa G| 8.31.09 @ 1:47PM

How can it be successful when the Government can't process the applications and pay the dealers leaving the independent dealers stuck so the autoworkers can build more cars? Another dagger in the back of the free enterprise system.

Joe| 8.31.09 @ 1:57PM

You forget that one of the only 2 reasons they did this was because they now own 2 of the big 3 auto makers along with the union and there political money.

jspicer| 8.31.09 @ 2:30PM

Be careful, they made Demolition Man thinking it was too ridiculous for the govt to emulate yet here we are very close to that particular edge. The left tend to take the most ridiculous ideas and attempt to make them real.

J| 10.3.09 @ 9:52AM

It's the subprime mortgage loan of the auto industry, ready and insistent on screwing over dealerships (the ones who weren't forced to close down by the government) from coast to coast... until these same (and I'm not saying all of them) negligent, free-loading imbeciles default on their payments. The government (Obama Administration) is behaving like the enabling, wanna-be 'cool parents' of the rebellious, irresponsible high-schooler that is increasingly becoming the American population. Stop trying to bail everyone who has clearly proven they do no deserve the benefit of the doubt, out of their mistakes and start holding the American public, as individuals, responsible for their actions. It is not until we do this that things will start to really turn around. Whatever happened to proving yourself in order to be allowed privileges? Because that is exactly what they are, privileges. Your 'rights' are more importantly your responsibility. People need to step up and just DO things instead of bitching about how oppressed they are. Enough already, honestly. EVERYONE has their own issues to face. Many times it is those you would never suspect that may be facing the toughest trials... not everyone feels the need to let the world know their problems in order to get sympathy while simultaneously avoiding responsibility and WORK.

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