Cash for Clunkers

Great name… Let’s look at some of the government “Clunkers” hatched in the first 6 months of the Obama administration.

The ill-advised Air Force One fly-over of New York City. Great planning there. Price tag on that was a paltry $387,000.

TARP (Troubled Asset Relief). This was the plan to save our financial system originally created during the final days of the Bush administration in conjunction with the Democratic controlled congress. The price tag is not in on this one yet. Neil M. Barofsky, the special IG for TARP set up by the Treasury Department, came up with the largest number yet in testimony prepared for delivery Tuesday to a House committee. He stated “The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23,700,000,000,000. (that’s 23.7 trillion),”. The dust hasn’t settled on all the inflated real estate investments, but let’s look closer at the reason TARP was needed in the first place: CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act. This was originally created in the early 90’s to help transition low-moderate income families into government-backed mortgages. The program was expanded by the newly elected Democrat congress in 2006. Banks were forced to make loans on homes people could not afford. And many of these loans included adjustable rates. This was a time bomb created by the Democrat congress. Who couldn’t see this coming? D’oh.

Stimulus Package $870,000,000,000. We were assured by Obama and his cadre that IF we passed the stimulus, we could hold unemployment to 8% or less. It’s now over 9.5% and climbing. And look at some of the things we’re “stimulating” with these dollars. And I loved this part… right after Obama signed the Stimulus Bill into law, he convened his cabinet and demanded that they find $1 MILLION DOLLARS in their departments to cut. Let’s do the math. In a matter of hours, Obama spent $870 BILLION and DEMANDED cabinet secretaries find 1 MILLION in savings. This was dutifully reported by the dinosaur media as bolstering Obama’s fiscal conservatism. I swear, I nearly threw something through the TV.

Cash for clunkers: This program was designed to provide rebates for older less fuel efficient cars through November. The planners that are scheming to take over your healthcare figured that $1Billion should take care of it. This money lasted just one week.

Still to come:

Cap’n Trade. May not be a middle class tax increase, but what happens when your utility bill increases 400% or more? There are a lot of low income folks right here in Memphis that can’t pay their electric bills now.

Healthcare reform. Proposals on the table right now will result in rationed government health services and mandatory counseling for end of life care, including hospice, DNR, and possibly even assisted suicide. Price tag: >$1 Trillion. (And this is the price tag estimate by the same group that gave us the $1Billion Cash for clunkers estimate.)

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office produced this graphic to illustrate the magnitude of the Federal Spending proposals juxtaposed to expected tax receipts:

The bad news is this chart was created BEFORE the recent unexpectedly large drop in tax receipts. It's likely worse that this!

Scary stuff.