Buy A Clunker, Turn It In For Government Cash

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The "Cash For Clunkers" Bill passed the Senate on Friday, June 19, and is headed to the President's desk for his signature.  Some of the repercussions of this bill are going to be interesting.  When I did an internet search on "cash for clunkers", I found ads from junk yards willing to sell their clunkers to consumers so that the consumers could get government money to buy a new car.  According to one website, there will only be $1 billion (only??) spent, so you have to move fast if you want any money. 

American Thinker posted an article today detailing what "Cash For Clunkers" will actually mean in terms of dollars and impact of the automobile sector of the economy.  The article points out:

"It got this crazy in part because of Federal mileage and other requirements that ignore what people really want in a car and in a fuel supply.  As recently reported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the death rate per million vehicles was 44 for SUVs and 35 for large cars, while for small cars it was 96, or more than double!"
The refusal to develop our own fuel supplies (a security matter as well as a economic matter) is responsible for our current energy challengers.  The article also points out:
 
"It got this crazy also because in a decades long fit of self sabotage, the Federal government banned off-shore drilling for most of our coast line and on land in Alaska. The ban has been critical in keeping the price of gas high. When the market realized that the ban might expire in September, 2008 creating more supply, the price of oil fell from a peak of $147 per barrel to a low of $32 per barrel, over a 75% drop. Now that the Administration and Congress have effectively re-instituted the ban, the price of oil has more than doubled again. The real point of the legislation is to goose car sales. But rather than create unsustainable phony demand that requires a voucher, wouldn't we all be better off with a lower gasoline price so the average American had more money to spend?  And wouldn't it be better to get our own oil out of our own ground and our own seabed, collect taxes on it, create American jobs by so doing, support the dollar in the process, enhance our national security and lower the price of gas for every US citizen?"
 
Unfortunately, our political leaders have sacrificed our national energy independence for campaign contributions.  The extreme fringes of the environmental movement have poured billions into Democratic campaigns and they have been rewarded by restrictions on tapping into America's own energy supplies.  Lifting those restrictions, instead of trying to get Americans into unsafe cars, would be a much better idea.

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This page contains a single entry by Granny G published on June 21, 2009 3:18 PM.

As The Senate Turns was the previous entry in this blog.

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