Clunkers for cash - Can we turn in Congress and this Administration? (UPDATED) (AGAIN)

Just asking, since they're the ones that have come up with this lame-brained idea:

The White House and Congress may be giving the “cash for clunkers” program a reprieve, but one can’t help wondering how many dealers and customers will have the confidence to go forward at this point. Things sound like a total mess in the showrooms.

“There is absolute frustration across the board,” Alex Kurkin, a lawyer based in Miami who represents several car dealerships, tells The Lede today. “As of this morning, they’re not really confident about any deals, and no one can give them advice about what they should be telling their customers.”

One thing still not clear is how many older cars have actually been sold and scrapped with the original $1 billion, and how many more the new $2 billion will be able to cover. Mr. Kurkin tells us that the government Web site where dealers are supposed to register their deals has been crashing, and the dealers haven’t been able to plug in their information.

...

The program requires that the clunkers be put out of service for good, so dealers must destroy the engines on cars that are traded in. We watched this process yesterday at the DCH Paramus Honda in Paramus, N.J. It is quite laborious and potentially dangerous. And it certainly is final.

Nick Clites, who is in charge of used cars for the dealership, was prepping a 1988 BMW 535IS, with 214,000 miles on the odometer, for its death. He drained the oil, then donned a silky blue protective suit, goggles and gloves and poured a sodium silicate solution into the engine. He revved the car, and within a few seconds, the solution hardened into a glass-like substance, the engine seized up and the car was dead.

So here is one question: With the program now on shaky ground, even with a new infusion of money, what consumer and what dealer will risk rendering an engine irretrievably unusable?
Well, as it turns out, a lot of them are doing so, because unless the dealers can prove to the government that they have killed the engines and scrapped the cars, the government will not reimburse them for the $3,500 or $4,500 discount that they have given the customer on a new, more efficient vehicle.

Barry Magnus, the general manager of DCH Paramus Honda, told us he was owed more than $80,000, and he wondered if he would ever see it. The government has said it would take 10 days to reimburse the dealers, but that was before the program apparently ran out of money and devolved into chaos Thursday night.

So the government takes something seemingly simple and fails miserably in administering it yet we're supposed to believe they'll handle our healthcare just fine.

Are you one of the idiots that believes this?

Honestly, are you?

UPDATE:  Had not seen this from over at The Boston Herald when I first put this post up, nevertheless, Mr. Holbert gets the idea:

UPDATE #2: Scott Ott weighs in on the meme:

A pilot program to replace older, inefficient, high carbon-emission Congressmen with greener models has already run out of funding, according to a bipartisan statement by Congressional leaders.

“It’s all gone,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, “America will just have to keep what I like to call her ‘classic’ members of Congress.”

The so-called ‘Cash for Incumbents’ program provided up to $4,500,000 for each politician who voters replaced with a modern public servant that burns less IRS revenue, and emits fewer vitriolic toxins into the atmosphere. The measure contained a provision requiring voters to ‘junk’ the old politician, to ensure he doesn’t return to Capitol Hill as a lobbyist.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-OH, explained that the funding disappeared overnight.

“It didn’t get spent. It just vanished,” said Rep. Boehner. “I’ve heard reports that it was transferred to the Congressional Franking Commission to be used by members to send important legislative information to their constituents…but that’s just a rumor.”

 

 

Comments

[dymphna]

I love it! From your keyboard to G-d's eyes...I'd trade my Congressman for that BMW, even after they ruined it. Having that thing sitting in my yard would be a reminder that we have one less dimwit lurking in Congress and passing bad bills.

The Tea Parties are planning a coordinated August 22nd demo at each Congressional District office re the Health Obomination. If they carry it off (and I, for one, plan to be at ours), then it will be harder for the MSM to dismiss or marginalize this movement.

BTW, have you read Ezekiel Emmanuel's calculus for who gets treatment and who doesn't under this government plan? Those from 15 to 40 have the best "quality of life years" and thus have preferential treatment. Of course, what he doesn't say is that this age group doesn't require much in the way of care. That's why a lot of them remain uninsured.

The lack of creativity in the administration's health care planning is mind-numbing. They don't want to change anything at all, they simply want to allocate the scarcity we already have. Well, hope and change never said he'd be creative about any of this.

Who says eugenics is dead? It's just coming at us from another angle.

BTW, we drive clunkers. A 2000 and a 1993. The 2000, at 22mpg, is a gas hog. But both are paid for and we may have to sell one anyway, since we're unemployed. I wonder when it will be against the law to privately sell old cars??

Ah Brave New Stupid World...

[brutally honest visitor]

And you are one of those world citizens that believes that the universe is only thousands of years old!

This site is filled with right wing losers!

[Mommynator]

The Spam Song is a Monty Python kit - way above your intellect.

Unless you have something intelligent to say, you're not proving your point.