The “cash for clunkers” plan recently proposed in Congress would provide a subsidy for a new car purchase to anyone willing to have their current car destroyed. But the economic rationale is eerily similar to the New Deal program most widely agreed to be a catastrophic failure: FDR’s agriculture plan that slaughtered pigs. The reasoning [...]
Archive for January, 2009
30 Jan
Shovel Ready or Plain Pork? Have Your Say
While the Obama Administration waffles on openness and transparency (see here and here), private citizens are stepping in to fill the void. The Heritage Foundation and other groups launched ReadtheStimulus.org to give citizens a chance to work their way through the massive spending proposal, flag suspicious language, and make suggestions. In other words, it’s a [...]
30 Jan
Britain’s Road to Serfdom
The amount of money the U.S. is spending in its vain effort to stimulate the economy is hard to grasp. As we’ve pointed out, $819 billion is equivalent to borrowing $10,520 from every family in America. That’s $819 billion that individual Americans will no longer be able to spend freely, as they see fit, and [...]
30 Jan
Democratic Senator: “The So-Called Stimulus”
The mainstream media refuses to mention it, but the only bi-partisanship in President Obama’s brief reign has produced has been against his Trillion Dollar Debt Plan. Eleven Democrats joined all of the House Republicans to vote against the bill. Now it is looking like this well deserved skepticism is spreading to the Senate. Watch Sen. [...]
30 Jan
Taxpayers on the Hook for…Who Knows What?
Strike Two: Not only did President Obama fail to open the Ledbetter Act for public comment before he signed it, a violation of his pledge to boost transparency, but now his administration is refusing to release information on billion-dollar loan guarantees made to some of America’s largest banks. Bloomberg News, which is suing the government [...]
30 Jan
Is a Trade War on the Horizon?
Jay Van Andel Senior Trade Policy Analyst at Heritage Daniella Markheim comments on why the recently discovered “Buy American” provisions in the ’stimulus’ bill will only hurt the American economy in the long run. Advocates of Buy American rules claim that limiting competition for U.S. government contracts to domestic firms will protect U.S. jobs and help prop up firms [...]
30 Jan
Will Carbon Trading End Up like the Subprime Mortgage Crisis?
Vincent de Rivaz, CEO of the UK arm EDF energy, made an interesting but frightening comparison when talking about trading carbon credits under the European Union’s cap-and-trade program: We like certainty about a carbon price. [But] the carbon price has to become simple and not become a new type of sub-prime tool which will be [...]
30 Jan
UK Auto Bailout
Few economists have a good word for the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930, which provoked a worldwide round of competitive protectionism that reduced trade, deepened and prolonged the Great Depression, and aided the rise of the Nazi Party. Out of that disaster came a bipartisan consensus: the U.S., for decades a protectionist country, needed to stand [...]
30 Jan
Al-Qaeda is Not a Competing Political Party
Heritage Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs James Phillips watched President Barack Obama’s first televised interview and comments: President Obama offered a new tone but little substance. He proclaimed that “we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest.” But he displayed amazing naivete in defining what those [...]
30 Jan
“Cash For Clunkers” Drives into Reality
But for handing over gobs of cash with no strings attached, it would be harder to imagine a more sweetheart deal for the auto industry: According to the Wall Street Journal, Congress is considering a proposal to pay consumers to buy new cars. It could wind up as part of the stimulus package now pending [...]
