Bydio

Although the White House is providing reassurances that dealers won’t lose money, that could happen based on the cash for clunkers rules. Dealers are required to give qualifying buyers the $3,500 or $4,500 discounts and then apply to the government for reimbursement. Dealers who apply for repayment after the funding runs out will not be reimbursed, according to the program’s rules.

“There’s a big concern among dealers that this thing may run out of money and they don’t want to be stuck holding the bag,” said Michelle Krebs, senior editor of AutoObserver.com.

To make matters worse, dealers are required to permanently disable the engines of clunker trade-ins before they can apply to the government for repayment, Krebs said. If payment is denied, the dealer is out the advanced discount and has a car with a ruined engine that can’t be resold.

via Advice Goddess Blog.

So Cash For Clunkers ran out of money, just what the dealers feared. However, the dealers still have to give the rebates even though they won’t be reimbursed. So they’re looking at the choice of killing the trade in to MAYBE get reimbursed by tax dollars somewhere down the line, or accept they’ll get no reimbursement and simply resell the cars for which they HAVE to give a rebate. So the fuel inefficient cars stay on the road (oh eek, the horror, eek, zzzzzz), and dealers will probably now avoid such cars like the plague because they won’t want the hassle of this non-paying program and the paperwork that goes with it.

So Congress has killed dealerships and probably made trading in millions of cars almost impossible. Well done, you fucking morons. Your “green” ambitions just stomped another mudhole in our economy. Assholes.

Because the endless, churning factories of our legislative systems at every level spew out law after law, many of them unread, that end up legalizing almost every aspect of our lives. So if Gates hadn’t been arrested for being a mouthy asshole (disorderly conduct), he would have been nailed for something else – I don’t know what, but I do know that all police have knowledge of a grab-bag of generalized, vague crimes they can bend to fit almost any situation. Disturbing the Peace is only one such.

The solution is to shut down the sausage factories as much as possible, and put sunset clauses on almost all laws already in force, or legislated in the future.

If the law is a good one, then there should be no problem in passing it again. If it’s a bad one, or an unnecessary one, let it die automatically.

via Daily Pundit » We Have Too Damned Many Laws.

I think this is a fantastic idea and would gladly see our legislatures squabble over laws already on the books rather than endlessly promoting new laws they dream up to make them look good to the emotional voters.

This is not a perfect idea, there are bits to consider like the cycle of liberal and conservative that goes around. One decade abortion is legal, next it isn’t, then another battle to relegalize, etc. But when it comes to issues that require public funding, then we have something to talk about.

Why we gain weight: Adiposity 101 and the Alternative Hypothesis of Obesity.