A Clunker of a Law

The "Cash for Clunkers" law ran out of money today. The program, funded by a billion dollars, that is BILLION, went into effect a week ago and was supposed to last through November. The law gives taxpayer dollars away, up to $4500, as an allowance for a trade in, for a new car purchase. The cars that are traded in have to be destroyed. They can't be resold, they can't be salvaged out for parts.

The government completely blew it in their forecast for the cost of this program. (Is it any wonder that many of us are skeptical of the claims of cost savings on things like healthcare? But that is the topic of another blog.) In addition to another major cost overrun by a government program, the Law of Unintended Consequences has reared its head in a major way. The "Cash for Clunkers" law sacrafices the middle class and the poor on the altar of the Goddess of the Environment. The alleged benefit of the "Cash for Clunkers", in addition to allegedly stimulating the auto industry, was that it would get gas guzzlers off the road, thus saving oil, reducing one's carbon footprint and stopping global warming. As a result of this program we are taking perfectly good operating vehicles and removing them from the marketplace. Many middle and lower income people cannot afford new cars. They shop in the marketplace of used. The law of supply and demand is one that even Congress has difficulty in screwing up. When we take perfectly good used cars out of the marketplace, the supply will go down, thus,the price will go up. When we take parts to repair these cars out of the marketplace, we raise costs of repairs to keep those cars going. And who pays the bill? The middle and lower income people who shop in that market of used cars. It's not the Congressmen and women that drive up to Capitol Hill in their new Lexus. It is the poor averge Joe like me that drives a 12 year old car with 175,000 miles on it and will have to pay out the nose to replace it because Congress didn't know or care about the fact that they will raise the costs of buying used cars.

Figures don't lie...but liars sure as hell figure

The American Recovery and Reinvestmet Act, the stimulus bill is getting some headlines in Kansas. A top Treasury official will be in Kansas tomorrow to celebrate the first project in Kansas using stimulus funds. The event is the grand opening of a senior citizen housing project in Osawatomie. That this project is being touted as an example of the success of the stimulus bill is an amazing stretch of reality.



The Woodland Hills Estates is a senior citizen housing project that was planned as replacement housing for residences that were destroyed in a 2007 flood. It is 22 two-bedroom units. The timeline here is extremely important. The city council of Osawatomie gave approval to the zoning for this development on October 9, 2008. The "stimulus bill" was signed by the president on February 13, 2009. The tenants started moving in the first part of July. Now it is very clear that the project was well underway by the time the "stimulus" became law. If it wasn't I'm not sure that I'd want to be in a housing development of 22 units that was built in less than 4 months.



The developer is getting a tax credit of slightly over 2 million dollars from the stimulus bill. That kind and amount of a tax credit certainly raises issues about overall tax policies and the adverse effect that high taxes have on economic growth, but those issues are best left for another blog.



It is clear that this project was well underway prior to the "stimulus" bill even being considered. While I don't begrudge the developer taking advantage of the tax credit., to claim that this is a success of the stimulus bill stretches the facts to an incredulous level.



We were told by the president that if the stimulus bill was not rammed through congress back in February, unemployment would rise to 9%. Even with it being rammed through, unemployment now stands at 9.5% and climbing. The administration has used the phrase, jobs created or saved, even though that "saved" job figure is something that is completely unmeasurable. Now projects like the one described above are being used as "success" stories of the stimulus. As my dad used to say, "figures don't lie, but liars sure as hell figure", using this and similar projects as successes for the stimulus bill just make the administration into even bigger liars than they've proven to be so far.

Peace for our time.

Two years ago, in a speech in Washington D.C., candidate Barack Obama stated, "It is time to turn the page. It is a time to write a new chapter in our response to 9/11....When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won......getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." WE WILL WAGE THE WAR THAT HAS TO BE WON. Just yesterday, President Obama stated, that he was uncomfortable using the term "victory " to describe the goal in Afghanistan. So, while we are in a war that "has to be won" we aren't working for victory???????? So, Obama is Commander in Chief of a military that he has claimed that are in a war that "has to be won", but he is uncomfortable with using the term "victory" in describing the goal of that war. What the hell are we fighting for if it isn't victory? How can you put soldier's lives in danger if you aren't aiming for victory in this war? We are in a battle for our very survival with fundamental Islamofacists. We have been in this battle for the last 25 years. They want to see our way of life destroyed. And we have a Commander in Chief of our military that isn't concerned about victory.....isn't concerned about winning a war. Kind of reminds me of Neville Chamberlain announcing to great cheers in 1938, after he gave in to Hitler's claims on Czechoslovakia that we would have "peace for our time". Weaklings who exhibit no backbone about defending themselves and "winning" a contest, only invite more abuse. By claiming we aren't in Afghanistan for victory, we are only making the target on us bigger.

Cult of Personality

A recent column appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal entitled "No joke: Democrats are touchy" It appears that a Republican candidate for Kansas Secretary of State made a joke about Barack Obama's birth certificate. The Kansas Democrats apparently issued a press release claiming that such a joke made the candidate unfit for office. In less than 2 days, the column generated almost 60 comments. The bulk of them taking the author to task for his "slanted" column and another large amount just attacking Republicans in general and those that wrote comments in general as these right wing zealots. This is just one example, I can point to many others, but the cult of personality that is forming around Barack Obama is quite frankly a little scary. According to many, we aren't allowed to oppose his proposals or make jokes about him.

Wikipedia states "A cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships and Stalinist type governments....Generally personality cults are most common in regimes with totalitarian systems of government that seek to radically alter or transform society according to (supposedly) revolutionary, new ideas. Often a single leader becomes associated with this revolutionary transformation and comes to be treated as benevolent 'guide' for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future cannot occur."

We aren't there yet, but we are coming dangerously close to creating a cult of personality. The mass media, for the most part, has done no hard questioning of BHO or his policies. In fact many are his biggest cheerleaders. We have way too manyof the elements of a "cult of personality" in play here to feel very comfortable. If you listen to Barack talk about health care, the economy, energy, the auto industry or about anything else, he is "the One" to radically transform society. All in all, it is just a bit too scary for me.