CASH FOR CLUNKERS? - AT 8:03 P.M. ET:  Well, looks like the Obamans have a program that works.  You bring your clunker into a dealer, they give you a huge discount courtesy of other taxpayers, you drive off in a new car, and they destroy your clunker.  Absolutely destroy it.

Sounds good, ay?  Well, you don't have to look at the fine print to realize what a fraud this is.  Just look at the facts:

1.  The government is paying people to buy cars, many of which are produced by companies the government, in effect, already owns.  As for other companies, they'll report big sales and it will look super.  One dealer reported on TV that he's selling twice the number of cars he would ordinarily.  Well, of course!  Give people free money to buy cars and they'll buy them.  But what happens when there isn't any more government money?  Does the term "next recession" mean anything?

2.  No one is looking to see whether the companies are jacking up prices, and then applying the government discount - sort of the way colleges have a way of raising tuition as soon as kids get scholarships and loans.

3.  Many of the clunkers aren't.  This is where the real obscenity comes in.  I looked at photos of some of those cars on TV.  They looked like perfectly fine, driveable vehicles.  Yet, under the guidance of the enviro-fanatics who dreamed up this joke, they must be destroyed.  They don't meet the standards of the fly-into-Aspen-for-a-conference crowd.  These vehicles can go to charities, they can go to caregivers, they can go to schools, they can go to activity groups for the elderly, they can go to poorer countries where people would love to have even low-mileage cars.  To destroy them is an act of arrogance, conceit and self-regard.  They are being "traded" simply because someone wants a new set of wheels and is getting a government subsidy. 

There's something immoral about this whole thing - using tax money so some folks can have new cars, and depriving the needy of those old cars.  Next, someone will come up with the idea of depriving some people of their lives under Obamacare if those lives don't meet environmental standards.  Better get a sticker with acceptable numbers to slap on your chest.  Or be labeled a clunker.

August 2, 2009