Friday, July 31, 2009

Shazam: An Obama Program Actually Works!

Can you believe it? I know, it's a shock:
Unlike pretty much every other Hopenchange economic policy, not only did this one work, it worked better than expected. And yet, I can’t help thinking there’s a lesson in the fact that a centrally planned program budgeted to run through the end of October went bust in, er, seven days. That’s some miscalculation — not unlike the miscalculation that promised unemployment no higher than eight percent once we pinched that $787 billion loaf known as the stimulus. And naturally, the program came buried in so much bureaucracy and paperwork that some dealers gave up on it despite the amazing business it drummed up.
RedState has more:

The problem is that participating car dealers are currently on the hook for the trade-ins that they made in good faith, but have yet to see any of the deals signed off on by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There are problems with the online system, you see.

Of course there are. It’s a government program, remember?

[Minnesota Auto Dealers Association vice president Scott] Lambert said the government has created a program that’s “so big and cumbersome that it can’t find a way to accept anything. We’re sending in good, reliable deals.”

It’s nerve-racking for the dealers, he said, because they have given the customer $4,500 and now the dealers need to be reimbursed.

Note that the program started on July 1, they only published the actual rules Friday, and they’re still working out how to get the dealers their money. If you’re shrugging over that, consider this: what’s essentially happening here is that car dealerships are giving $4,500 interest-free, unguaranteed loans to the federal government… and the determination of whether or not those loans get paid off is more or less going to be at the discretion of mid-level bureaucrats at the NHTSA. Even if they do repay every loan, it’s apparently going to take time for the system to smooth out; it’s an open question whether it’ll straighten out before the official end of the program in November. And the car dealerships - the only producers of goods in this particular equation, and the ones that the government is ostensibly trying to help - get all the headaches.

In a strange sort of backwards way, this completely validates conservative philosophy. What do conservatives say is the best way to generate economic recovery? To put more money back into the hands of the American people, right? Well, this program does more or less just that. Sure, it's taking it out of their back pocket first (Cash-for-Clunkers is funded by taxpayer dollars), but it then hands an extra $4500 to anyone who wants a new car. Bingo! Can we please apply this success to the entire economy now? How about a fabulous new tax cut that puts money back into the hands of the American people?

Ah, that was a nice diversion. Now let's come back down to earth. Considering the government has miscalculated on a $1 billion program and completely failed to properly administer it, let's just imagine how things will go with the multi-trillion dollar health care takeover, the multi-tens-of-trillion dollar economy in general, and the priceless security of our national defense...!

On second thought, let's not.

There's my two cents.

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