Decisions, decisions

Man, the 'Cash-for-Clunkers' program is really a hit! In fact, it caused such a buying frenzy that today our President increased its budget by 200% and gave it more time! With all of these 'green' cars on the road, I can practically hear the ice caps reforming at the poles and the polar bears gettin' it on to replenish their population. All hail the Democrats!

Back to reality, this program is a sterling example of how political incentives are increasingly crowding out any sort of economic incentives when it comes to this country. Instead of our President or Senators realizing that perhaps they provided for too generous of a voucher and that they should cut back on the voucher amount, they triple the budget for it. Eerily similar to the push for universal health insurance, where the government already can't handle its obligations to Medicaid and Medicare.

Of course, I think the entire shabang is ridiculous. These vouchers are kind of like those stimulus checks we received last summer, you know, the ones that would 'prevent the economy from free falling into a recession.' These vouchers in large part managed to impel people to either 1) fore go purchasing a vehicle until the rebate was available or 2) buy a vehicle NOW instead of later. I'm sure some people who wouldn't have bought otherwise did because of this program, but still, this is probably negligible considering the unemployment rate is 9.7% and I doubt many folks seek to get involved in extraneous contracts and obligations. This is not a long term solution to anything remotely having to do with the economy.

The democrats got what they wanted, that is, more green cars and happy constituents. But what about the GoodYears and the PepBoys, who won't be repairing as many vehicles this summer and fall? What about the industries that would had benefited from the money that was taxed and used to support the voucher program? What's going to happen to the American auto industry when sales do finally slump? Vouchers and bailouts can only go so far until the people become indignant.

The government is truly picking the winners and losers nowadays.