One clunker of a program

When the government tries to run something, the outcome usually isn't good;
and cash for clunkers is no exception. There are a myriad of problems with
this program from not knowing how much money is left to what will happen to
all of the clunkers that are traded in. Can you say unintended
consequences? I sure can.

Let's start from the beginning. The deal on this one is that $1 billion
will be spent by the government, who will get the money from God knows
where, to get inefficient vehicles off the road and allow people to trade
them in for more fuel-efficient vehicles. The goal is to get these clunkers
off the road permanently. Obviously the clunkers will be scrapped. The
amount of the rebate depends on the increase in fuel efficiency of the
vehicle purchased vs. that of what is being traded in.

After the first week, dealers are wondering if they will get their money and
there are questions about how these clunkers will be disposed of. I have
also heard about snafus with the government website for this program as
dealers complete mountains of paperwork, with said paperwork being typical
of any government program. Now no one knows how much money is left in this
program and the House was in a hurry to rush another $2 billion down this
black hole. The Senate doesn't want to move so fast which is just fine with
me. Let them ask some tough questions because I am quite certain that the
administration can't answer the questions.

Then there is the disposal of these clunkers. Enter unintended
consequences, something Liberals don't think about. There is a shortage of
the chemical which is needed to kill the engines on these vehicles so that
they will never run again. That's
one unintended consequence. The other is where and how to dispose of the
dead engines and the other parts of these vehicles. I've seen headlines to
indicate that these are not a boon for junk yards either. Can parts other
than the engines be used or not? Likely not as that would defeat the
purpose of the program in the eyes of this administration and its liberal
friends. It's for the environment but they forgot to think about the
environment when they were conceiving this program. If they had been
thinking, this program would have died a merciful death.

You say things would be different in the area of health care. I highly
doubt it as the government has proven before that it can't run other things
well. Take the digital TV conversion which started under a Republican
administration. This one was botched from the start. There was no
consideration of accessibility for people with disabilities to the menus at
all. Heck I can't even turn on the stupid TV at work due to the need for an
analog to digital converter box that is inaccessible to me. People from the
government were clearly clueless on that one as demonstrated by two
underwhelming appearances at ACB functions in 2008.

These are but two programs that illustrate why you don't put anything
crucial into the hands of the government. They will, and usually do, find a
way to screw it up. The two examples given show that in two
administrations. Need I say more? I don't think so.