{"id":947,"date":"2009-08-05T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/08\/05\/clunkers-are-the-new-culture-war-icon\/"},"modified":"2009-08-05T07:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-05T11:01:00","slug":"clunkers-are-the-new-culture-war-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/08\/05\/clunkers-are-the-new-culture-war-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"Clunkers are the new culture war icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a wicked debate underway over the cash-for clunkers program, the Federal subsidy that in theory encourages car-buyers to trade in their gas-guzzlers for lean, efficient models.<\/p>\n

The biggest practical gripes about the program: it costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and it doesn’t require that people buy cars that are all that green. <\/p>\n

Conservatives are also furious over the program, which they view as more evidence of government mismanagement.<\/p>\n

The bottom line, though, is that the clunkers-program’s biggest hurdle has been its run-away popularity. <\/p>\n

Everybody’s cashing in — so fast that the program ran out of money. And even many of the program’s conservative critics just can’t resist.<\/p>\n

Here’s a posting on The Corner<\/a>, the conservative blog site run by the National Review, written by Benjamin Zycher.<\/p>\n

And so I asked the question on the minds of millions of my fellow concerned citizens: How can I get my snout into this trough?…<\/p>\n

I am deeply ashamed of myself…but not sufficiently so to have forgone the $4,500.<\/p>\n

And, to be blunt, I am hardly the only sinner in this congregation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mixed into Zycher’s argument is a lot of hand-wringing over how the program hurts the poor and the environment. <\/p>\n

But he still nabbed the cash and the new car.<\/p>\n

I think his essay says a lot about the conservative movement’s ambivalent relationship to big government.<\/p>\n

Government spending and debt skyrocketed during the era when President Bush and the Republican Congress ran Washington.<\/p>\n

(Yes, it’s gone up even faster under President Obama. He claims that’ll change after the recession subsides…we’ll see.)<\/p>\n

And many conservative communities (rural towns in particular) are heavily dependent on government handouts for their economic well-being.<\/p>\n

I don’t see this as hypocrisy exactly, but it demonstrates a deep muddle within the conservative movement.<\/p>\n

Will the clunkers program be a success and a good deal for American taxpayers? Hard to say. The auto industry saw the best sales in July that it’s seen in a year.<\/p>\n

This from the Wall Street Journal<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some auto makers signaled they plan to raise production to restock showrooms emptied by months of production cuts and the government-fueled sales surge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what’s your experience? Did you cash in on a clunker? Do you feel like you sold out or was this a good, smart move on the part of the Obama Administration?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a wicked debate underway over the cash-for clunkers program, the Federal subsidy that in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}