The American Spectator : Clunk for Cashers

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Clunk for Cashers

By Jay D. Homnick on 9.4.09 @ 6:07AM

Obama government has had its chance to show its skills -- which prove to be nonexistent.

Borrowing a page from France, the Obama administration offered Cash for Clunkers, a program in which cars without radios were given country music CDs. The endeavor has been proclaimed an unqualified success, in that unqualified federal workers succeeded as well as they could, which was not well at all. (Historical Note: The French program was titled Cake for Clashers and authored by the late Marie Antoinette.)

On a more serious note, the Cash for Clunkers idea, whatever its economic and environmental merits, whatever its Constitutional legitimacy, occupied a rare historic moment. When the history of 2009 is written, CFC will be seen to have played a central role in the seismic political tremor of this year. The conservative side of the political debate not only dodged a bullet here, it even loaded up on some gift ammo for its own weaponry.

To dramatize my point, let me describe the political situation where I live. Although my byline usually says North Miami Beach, my home is located in an unincorporated section of Miami-Dade County which abuts the City of North Miami Beach. The city is anxious to swallow us up, which would expand its tax base. The county has approved a special election where we get to decide if we want to join the city.

Sensing that the votes were not there yet for incorporation, they have elected not to schedule the election… yet.

In the meantime, they try to make the sale. We keep hearing about the expanded police services, the expanded garbage pickups, the expanded recreational facilities, the superior aesthetics. The problem for them is we live right here side by side with the city people. For example, the family two houses to the north of me are in the city limits. So we get to see up close exactly what goes on.

Then suddenly there was a crime wavelet. Over a few weeks there were a series of robberies, home invasions and street muggings. Citizens roared, politicians quailed and a large communal meeting was called at a nearby public school. We all came with passion, half indignant and half hopeful, to hear and to be heard.

On that stage that night the two police chiefs appeared together, the city and the county. They each pledged to do their utmost. I said to myself, "Here is the opportunity for the city to win us over. If their half of the neighborhood becomes noticeably safer, we will all line up for incorporation." Weeks went by and things improved, but uniformly. When the crime was high it was equal on both sides of the city boundary; when it became low again it was still equal.

The federal government, as administered by the minions of Obama, had a similar shot. In the midst of a huge philosophical debate about the role of Washington in the life of the little guy, one highly specific, recognizable, understandable, observable federal project with a beginning, a middle, an end and a catchy title emerged. Had Elvis been in the House, had they pulled it off coolly, the fellows in the East Wing would have been flying high indeed.

I would venture to say that despite the trillions of dollars and the high risk to life, limb and liberty in the health reform proposals, Cash for Clunkers could have put it over the top. If all the dealers were paid in a timely fashion, there would have been a large pool of happy campers in that parking lot. Everyone would have been beaming about how gracious Uncle Sam was being to us in relieving our exhaustion, our fuming and our exhaust fumes.

But the delivery of the cash is still clunking along as we speak. Dealers are getting a raw deal as they wait for bungling bureaucrats who keep messing up the paperwork. Applications get kicked back repeatedly for technicalities. The cars are off the lots, the clunkers have been disabled, but where is the cash? Under the TARP? Fed to the dogs? Used for green fuel?

This was a golden opportunity for Obama and his merry band, but instead the Sheriff of Nottingham wins the round. Ah, the good old days when you could take from the rich to give to the poor without a lot of red tape! Seeing the modern-day Friar Tucks tucking their filled-out forms behind government desks while filling out forms is somehow incongruous. Maybe we need the eyeshade Republicans back in power if only to give the redistributionists back their rogue panache.

topics:
Government Waste, Presidential Clunkers

About the Author

Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. Here he performs his original composition, "Buy You (Bayou) a Drink".

Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment

Louis Jenkins| 9.4.09 @ 9:02AM

"When the crime was high it was equal on both sides of the city boundary; when it became low again it was still equal. " How grand!! Crimminals without boundaries!! Kinda like our leaders from the District of Crimminals who tell us they're here to help us. Remember the old saying: "If it is too good to be true, it probably isn't." And they want to run health care, clean up the environment, and stimulate the economy?

Bud| 9.4.09 @ 9:30AM

Perhaps Obama & Co. could be termed "The Gang That Couldn't Loot Straight."

One cannot help but take some grim pleasure when the apparatchiks tie their own shoelaces together before they go pillaging.

It is a shame we may have ample reason to revive those jokes the citizens of the U.S.S.R. shared in private about the Politburo and its flappers.

dcd| 9.4.09 @ 9:41AM

obama's cash for clunkers is a bad idea, bush's send everyone cash is a bad idea. Just balance the budget, cut spending, reduce taxes.

Mark | 9.4.09 @ 10:34AM

The cash for clunkers program was a bad idea. The administration is trying to claim a victory now in its early stages so that it is under the rug and forgotten when the actual resuls are in. Wait for a couple of months when the car dealers will be screaming due to lack of future sells and repos all the while waiting for the government to pay them.

Appleby| 9.4.09 @ 10:48AM

Weren't these essentially the same type of kids who caused the Dotcom Bubble -- who took enormous amounts of venture capital and built posh "campuses" and decorated their offices to the nines -- but forgot that a business is required to actually produce and sell something because -- SURPRISE! -- that money has to be paid back?

If you continue to allow The Kids to try to run the world according to what they see on teevee, what else could you possibly expect?

Tim| 9.4.09 @ 11:06AM

This program has been so successful that they are adapting it to fix their failed iniative to solicit an enemies list.
"Cash for Kulaks" will pay up to $5,000 for every reactionary bourgeois Obama hater turned in by patriotic peoples.
An anonymous poster such as me would get about $5, but if you know the whereabouts of a big fish like an Alan D. Homnick, well, comrade you've hit the jackpot.

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 9.4.09 @ 1:58PM

In the interest of full disclosure I must confess that my wife and I now live in public housing. Our driveway and its rather large retaining wall built from railroad ties is eroding into oblivion. So we decided to have it replaced. Unfortunately, this requires an outlay of cash greater than I could find in the car seat or under the sofa cushions. We examined our options and decided, all things considered, our best path would be to use our home equity to refinance our mortgage with enough cash drawn out to rebuild the drive and wall. The other day we received a letter that our new mortgage has been bought by Fannie May. That means American Taxpayers now hold deed to my door. During the professor gates dustup, I was offended when obumassiah replied to the arresting officer’s request for advice as to how to get the reporters off his lawn something like he can’t get them off his. This irritated me at the time, because the golden calf does not graze in his own yard. The White House is public housing. The Taxpayers own it. It’s not his lawn. It’s ours. But now, I’m more sympathetic since I, too, mow subsidized zoysia. That said, I must admit that I do not understand how the stock market works. The unemployment rate climbed to 9.7%. There were something over a half million new jobless claims, yet investors are buying today. Since cash for clunkers was such an unabashed success, I propose that the blue-lipped genie enhance it. My revised plan would simply build on the idea that $4,500 per clunker is a great idea. Keeping in mind that there was an additional cost to the gum’mint for junking and scrapping all these clunkers, which might have been offset by the price of scrap metal and other recyclables, I have no idea what the final cost per clunker was. But under my plan, I would simply ask consumers to incur a $20 co-pay. Uncle timmy would make up the difference, someday, to the car dealers. Heck, I’d sure like a fancy new car sitting in my fancy new driveway buttressed by my fancy new stone wall. And just think, you Taxpayers would have picked up practically the whole check. Thank you! Zoom, Zoom, Zoom.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
Don’t Tread on Me!!

Louis Jenkins| 9.4.09 @ 4:18PM

Dear Gill O'Teen:

How about a new program “Cash for Old Dogs that Don’t Hunt”? I’d gladly give up my lazy Blue Tic for four or five thousand. And if Obama has a pork chop tied around his neck, why Ol’ Blue would follow him around like a blind political supporter. Both worlds would be greatly enhanced. Obama would gain a friend, which is needed because he’s rapidly losing them, and I’d have enough dough to buy a new huntin’ dog and a used gun rack.

Now let’s see, Cash for Old Wives, Cash for Mouthy Children, Cash for Leaky Facets, Cash for Constipation, the sky is the limit. Some of us could make a bundle!

Marc Jeric| 9.4.09 @ 4:48PM

The French economist Frederic Bastiat from 200 hundred years ago must be turning in his grave. So the government printed $3 billion in debt to give the car buyers to buy new cars; these buyers have bought some 700,000 new cars, borrowing about $1 trillion in new credits. So now we have reduced the public's purchasing power for that one trillion dollars which could have been used to purchase new products, produce new investment. If this is a good economic policy, then we could revive the housing industry by burning millions of existing houses and giving $100,000 bonus for the displaced homeowners toward a purchase of new house. And so on - Bastiat demonstrated the idiocy of such economic policy lo so many years ago.

John Navratil| 9.4.09 @ 4:57PM

I have a clunker and actually tried to convert it to cash. I failed, not because I couldn't find a dealer who take the car, but because the car was always priced at "sticker." One dealer killed the deal after we negotiated $2000 off the car when it was discovered that the odometer of my clunker no longer worked. Imagine having to have a working odometer on a car, the drive train of which cannot be resold.

In my experience (I speak for no one else), the dealer was always going to get "invoice" in the deal, which meant no outlay of money on the dealers part while waiting for Uncle Sugar to dispense the cash. So it doesn't appear tears are needed.

I'm not complaining as I thought the program was ill advised. I expect the sales to slow considerably in the months ahead and will buy when there isn't such hysteria in the showroom.

By the way, the cars have to be maintained in the dealer's lot, but not disabled until the reimbursement comes in. No cash and the dealer doesn't have to disable the clunker. Now you have to have that working odometer to sell the car.

Tommy K| 9.4.09 @ 8:36PM

Or as we used to say back in the day... "he could f***up a wet dream"

tony| 9.4.09 @ 11:35PM

Yes,It is a shame we may have ample reason to revive those jokes the citizens of the U.S.S.R. shared in private about the Politburo and its flappers.
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SAM| 9.4.09 @ 11:36PM

An anonymous poster such as me would get about $5, but if you know the whereabouts of a big fish like an Alan D. Homnick, well, comrade you've hit the jackpot
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Don| 9.6.09 @ 8:00AM

I agree until at the end we do NOT need the Republicans back in power. We need a whole new group of people who will in fact look out for the People, Country and the Constitution perhaps it is time for The Independent American Party to be in power and see if they will care about this Country and restore The Constitution.

Kurt| 9.6.09 @ 4:10PM

Maybe we need to realize Obama is setting up these small bumps in the road to economic recovery. Come spring or summer of 2010 he will spring much of the stimulus money on whatever district needs a democrat without the blue dog tag elected. Then watch the lemmings say what a great man Obama is and what a great party the democrats are, economic recovery government style. It lasts for a very short while and centralizes control, indeed many are being duped-left and right.