White House v. Edmunds: Your Cash 4 Clunkers Analysis Is Wrong!
Yesterday, Edmunds.Com reported that Cash for Clunkers wasn't the big deal everybody thought it was. So, the White House responded today: "Dear Edmunds, Your Cash for Clunkers analysis is wrong! Love, The White House." OK, maybe it wasn't quite that language but that's the gist.
Edmunds.Com reported that "Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold. Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program."
Well, that upset the White House. It responded on its blog: "Busy Covering Car Sales on Mars, Edmunds.com Gets It Wrong (Again) on Cash for Clunkers." The White House says, "This analysis ignores not only the price impacts that a program like Cash for Clunkers has on the rest of the vehicle market, but the reports from across the country that people were drawn into dealerships by the Cash for Clunkers program and ended up buying cars even though their old car was not eligible for the program."
Of course Edmunds fired back, but let me say this: both sides are right but Edmunds is probably a little more right, truth be told. I've found their analyses over the years to be right on mark.
Tell me what you think below. Who is right in this argument?
Of course Edmunds is correct. If government spending could create prosperity, then the old Soviet Union would still be going strong.
Government has no money of its own. It can only take from one and give to another. Whatever the person would have done with their own money is called a lost opportunity cost. They might have bought a car, started a business, paid bills, or whatever, but instead it was taken by the government and used for cars. No new wealth was created in the process. In fact, the cost of administering this boondoggle program makes it even more wasteful.
People always spend their own money more wisely than they do someone else’s. Government spending is always wasteful.
Just watched the Germans knock over the wall of Dominos marking the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism.
Aggie is right come the next election we’ll see and the pathetic dominos in Washington begin their tumble from Frank to Pelosi, around the country and then back to Washington in time for 2012!
When has THIS whitehouse done ANYTHING positive to making this country better??