Cash for Clunkers

The government employees just cannot say no to the automobile industry lobbyists.

(Reuters) - A $1 billion federal "Cash for Clunkers" program that pays consumers $3,500 or $4,500 in credit to swap aging gas-guzzlers for new, more fuel efficient models.The program signed into law by President Barack Obama in June offers a trade-in credit of up to $4,500 to owners of cars built since 1984, with fuel economy of 18 miles per gallon or less.)

The Cash for Clunkers program is another interventionist attempt to micro manage the economy to perform better. Micro managing an economy by central planners might create a temporary boost in buying one product but only at the expense of another. In the long run the economy will be impaired by the controls of the interventionists.

Like the housing bubble caused by government policies asked for by Realtors, builders, and lenders, policies that artificially inflated the price of homes, the Cash for Clunkers program is artificially inflating the real value of a new car. Someone else has to make up the $3500 the government contributes because the government does not have money it does not forcibly take from the market place.

Here is more government hubris. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human service, said, "We know that there are systems in various parts of this country that are much higher quality day in and day out at a much lower cost, so we're trying to not only reduce costs, but tie reduced costs to higher quality."

Since when is the government in the quality control business? Is there anything the government mob will not claim is their function? The more functions they claim, the more money we have to give them to carry out those functions. They benefit more than we do by all the powers they assume. All those mob employees get good pay, perks, and early retirement with pensions that are better than we producers.

A mob operates by force.

Charles Tolleson