Lofty Goals, Piss Poor Execution: The Story of Every Government Program

Ok, let's talk Cash for Clunkers again. Let's also put aside the arguments that I've had with countless people about the criteria and goals of said program (these points are moot now). It just came out that 2% of all clunkers claims have been paid out. (source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/16/auto-dealers-paid-just-percent-clunkers-claims-congressman-says/?test=latestnews) I don't care if you liked the program before, but you cannot argue with this.





Why is this you ask? Apparently there are a number of reasons but under-staffing (staff of 225 for 338,659 vehicles) and minor paperwork glitches are cited as the main causes. Isn't this typical of any government program? Hugely impressive goals coming from the mouths of politicians (they want to be remembered for having such a positive program when it comes election time) but, once the program has been met with positive poll results, the wind falls from the sails.





Now this begs the question, where is the collective $3B authorized by our "officials" to come from our pockets? According to my math (338,659 vehicles * $4,500 per vehicle to be nice and then take 2% of that), only $30,479,310 has been released to dealers. $30M out of $3B? What a terrible track record.


Now here's the real kicker. The dealers are not being paid for the cars they "sold" which means they still own the cars. This means they can take back the cars sold under the program that haven't been paid off.

The lesson to be taken from this (well one of them anyway) is that Congress should not act on their knee jerk reactions to popular opinion. For the most part, I would say the public knows best but they do not create and implement policy. It is Congress's job to take popular opinion (like "we can't afford new cars") and research if there can be policy built around it. In this case, the research was lacking in respect to funding and (I'm guessing it will come out later) the environmental impact.

So, big government, let this be a "teaching moment" (since you love that term so much). Research policy before you enact it. Better policy does not mean more policy.