Washington – Cash for Clunkers a way to sell cars and supposedly help the environment — is working so well for auto dealers that, heck, why not extend it to other products?
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I have a couple of ideas.
As you know, the newspaper industry is doing very badly right now.
So Washington could kick back, let’s say, half the cost of your daily paper when you return yesterday’s edition.
About $2 billion will just about do the trick. And don’t go worrying yourself about where the money will come from.
Washington can print as much of the stuff as it wants.
Please, don’t call this a bailout of the publishing industry — it’s recycling. And a way to promote literacy (he writes with a smirk.) Call it Cash for Old News.
But you don’t have to stop there.
Fast food companies are struggling at the same time that obesity is becoming a horrible problem in this country.
I see a natural government bailout here — although we should probably use the word “stimulus” so we don’t offend our creditors, the Chinese.
Return a partially eaten Whopper and the Obama administration will pick up half the cost of a grilled chicken sandwich or salad. Just send your receipt to the White House.
That’ll be the Cash for Calories program, or maybe even Cash for Chubbies.
And Broadway could use a boost. Anyone who can sing the score to “The Sound of Music” or “West Side Story” would be allowed to write the price of their tickets off their next tax return.
And don’t consider it a bailout for the theater business either. It’s really a way to promote the arts.
That will be called the Cash for Creatives program.
If it tries hard enough, the Obama administration could interfere — I mean, rescue — any industry it wants.
Real estate already gets great support, but it could use more.
The government, for example, could give people $10 for every open house they attend; $20 if the prospective buyers can prove they are sufficiently solvent to a least pretend to purchase a home.
It’ll be called Cash For Just Coming. Traffic in realtors’ offices will boom.
The disposable diaper industry is in deep — well you get the idea. The government could have the Cash for Poop program. Airlines? Cash to Get High.
Americans would just have to take unnecessary trips by traveling somewhere nobody would ever want to go and Uncle Sam would pick up the tab.
Cash for Cereal would make Kellogg one happy company. For Heinz, there’ll be Cash for Catsup.
And Cash for Comics might get sitcoms back on television and save us all from reality TV.
And all it takes is money.
I wonder if the Chinese like TV, cereal, diapers and Broadway enough to loan us a few trillion more.
Maybe newspapers can just allow the US Treasury to use their presses to print more greenbacks.
If you don’t think all the spending America has already done is a problem, just listen to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He was on TV last weekend explaining that the nation’s budget deficit would have to be reduced quickly.
And he’s saying that even before we have a single quarter of positive economy growth. Why? Because the Chinese are getting mad at us.
And Geithner has another program going on that’s called Calm the Chinese. That could be the most expensive one of all.
The owners of “minority” newspapers and radio/tv companies serving low incomed and black communities have asked for a special loan guarantee program from the Treasury. There is legislation in both the house and senate providing some of the support they requested in the form of loans and grants. Bottom line: Your fantasy government bailout program will soon be a reality when Congress returns in September.
P.S. I don’t believe that any yiddeshe publications or media companies have been schneuring for government money, at least not yet.
The C.A.R.S. program was just payback by Obama to the UAW for supporting him during the election. Thanks for picking up the tab, taxpayer.
Since we have given neary a trillion dollars to AIG, Freddi Mac, CitiBank, etc. spreading around a few billion here and there to moishe, yankel and jose shouldn’t upset you.
how about cash for blogs.
how about cash for brains . if u only use half your brain you get 100 dollars so you can go sign up for a fully functional one
I can use a new vacumn cleqaned, refrigerator, boat, lawn mower, sofa, chair, dining room set, kitchen set. How about some books, a rocking chair, a few television sets. Anything for free. C’mon congress lets start sending out some checks, and don’t stop at 4500.00 dollars.
You can surely print 3 or 4 billion checks.
#4 ….A fine sense of humor, for a very stupid cash for clunkers program.
#5…. Try lighting up a little, and try and see the humor of a senseless program. Or maybe you need gov’t help, and don’t want to work to earn anything!
Of course you do realize that, at this rate, we are all going to be wearing $1000 suits and driving $100,000 cars in a few years…
How about cash for Kidneys?
how about cash for the botlin….oh we have that already…Welfare…….ha
And how soon will there be more advanced cars, causing todays new cars to be branded clunker? Then we’ll need another bailout! This cycle has got to stop right now. Once and for all!
This one is not a joke:
How about Cash for Jobs – The government should give money to those who do something productive. Instead of giving something for nothing, the government (including local) should promote new industries, restoring/ improving existing transportation, street renovation, and even new services. Cash to those who provide something and nothing to those who dont – that would be a real economic stimulus package.
Cash for X , has to start with a C, so sorry no blogs, jobs…
how about Cash for Comments?
The US spends about half a billion dollars in Iraq a day, so maybe over the course of the whole war they must have spent 2 trillion. And you are making a fuss over 1 billion for cars that is actually benefiting American Autoworkers? A few billion is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on foreign countries.
Why didn’t we take the trillions we spent in Iraq and use it to upgrade America’s infrastructure?
This might just work how about cash for work program you get money for really working it might not work in all communities