Comments on: President Obama’s One Successful Stimulus Idea Goes Bankrupt

By: kathie

kathie — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:39:40 +0000

Let’s just put aside Obama’s motives for the moment, still the people whom he wants to help are the very same people in inner cities who don’t benefit from our educational system, or clinics, who they say have crummy teachers, and clinics who have crummy doctors. I don’t think for a moment these very same people are going to get the kind of care that Teddy Kennedy got, even if we put a trillion dollars into the system. And in enacting the proposals that the House is proposing will bring every body down to an unacceptable standard. We need a robust privately insured population to help support our medical community and those who will never help themselves, no matter how much we beg them to take care of themselves.

By: BarbaraS

BarbaraS — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:00:41 +0000

If you really wanted to help people, why not give everybody who has no health insurance $4,500

kathie

This health plan is not about health or ins. It is about control. How better to control the population than with withholding or giving the OK for treatment? And from what I have read they will even be able to draft your bank accounts and meddle in your financials. Plus this is just another effort on Obama’s part to push government into the private sector.

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Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:48:22 +0000

[...] President Obamaâ€™s One Successful Stimulus Idea Goes Bankrupt [...]

By: kathie

kathie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:40:52 +0000

If you really wanted to help people, why not give everybody who has no health insurance $4,500 to buy it? To buy a car, a car? A car is more important then keeping a home, health insurance, paying down debt. Another temporary fix for a really sick economy. Does anyone think long term. How many of the people with clunkers can really afford a new car. I have a clunker because I can’t afford to borrow for a new car, even if I had $4,500. How many of these people will default on this loan?

By: WWS

WWS — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:25:18 +0000

There is a long term problem with the idea behind “cash for clunkers” programs – and it is the same problem the auto companies ran into with the zero finance options that got popular before they augured into the dirt.

It is this – an incentive program like this grabs potential demand from the next several quarters and advances it into this one. Yes, it increases sales, but it does this by borrowing from future sales. These older cars being traded in would all have been replaced at some point in the near future; the CARS program gave people an incentive to make that replacement now.

Therefore, short term demand goes up but long term demand goes down. And worse; all of the money to create this short term pop in demand comes out of the government deficit, which is going to come back out of the economy at some point. If this money is spent to create new jobs and new investment it may be worthwhile; but if it just serves to keep short term numbers up it is probably not a long term positive.

By: gwood

gwood — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:27:12 +0000

I can’t disagree that perhaps the government shouldn’t be incentivizing car purchases, but the fact remains that this $1 billion is doing far more for the private sector than the other 750 billion or so in “stimulus” that was aimed at the public sector.

There will be somewhere around 250,000 new vehcile purchases, no doubt saving jobs at both the dealership, and manufacturer supply chain levels, not to mention inventory replacement. Including interest on loans, roughly $7.5 billion in economic activity has been realized, with a multiplier effect down the road.

I think the value of “Cash for Clunkers” for us fiscal conservatives lies in the teaching moment it provides, clearly illustrating the folly of Obama’s stimulus plan, which had most of the money targeted to ACORN, and other public sector entities. The Obama “stimulus” was seemingly hell-bent on avoiding the private sector. Perhaps road building will have some benefit to the private sector, but the overwhelming majority stimulated government, not the private sector.

We should not fail to point out how tax cuts would have a similar stimulative effect, because they would target the private sector as “Cash for Clunkers” has.

By: kathie

kathie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:20:50 +0000

So people are loosing jobs, homes, medical insurance, savings and you give away $1 billion of my hard earned money so SOME can buy new cars? And you’re proud of how successful the program is?
Oh please, a big give away government. It makes me sick!

By: Mike M.

Mike M. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:18:56 +0000

“Cash for Clunkers” should have been applied to Democrat Congressmen, not old cars.

By: Posts about Politico as of July 31, 2009 » The Daily Parr

Posts about Politico as of July 31, 2009 » The Daily Parr — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:46:04 +0000

[...] about Politico as of July 31, 2009 President Obamaâ€™s One Successful Stimulus Idea Goes Bankrupt – strata-sphere.com 07/31/2009 I am not a fan of the â€œCash for Clunkersâ€ government giveaway. [...]