Cash for Clunkers Hits a Rough Patch in the Senate

What is a “foreign” car, and what is a “domestic” car? Not trying to be snarky–just wondering how these terms are defined. A lot of “foreign” cars are built here. A lot of “domestic” cars have significant “foreign” components.

spob:
1. Trade in a car that — this is a key point — has been registered and in use for at least a year, and has a federal combined city/highway fuel-economy rating of 18 or fewer miles per gallon.

2. Buy a new car, priced at $45,000 or less and rated at least 4 mpg better than the old one (gets a $3,500 voucher). If the new one gets at least 10 mpg better, you get the full $4,500.

Example: Trade that well-worn 1985 Chevrolet Impala V-8 police special, rated 14 mpg, for a 2009 Impala V-8 rated 19 mpg and the government will kick in $3,500. Downsize to Chevy Cobalt (27 mpg) or even a larger Honda Accord (24 mpg) and get $4,500.

Mileage ratings back to 1985 are at http://www.fueleconomy.gov.

The American consumer has spoken and the program is a resounding success. Do Republicans really want to kill off the auto industry for a final time? Cannot believe this is even a debatable issue…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

“progressives like California Senator Dianne Feinstein”

Words have lost all meaning.

Claire McCaskill did that short message thing this morning where she wrote “No NEW spending for cash for clunkrs”

I know the contours of the deal. My question was more a dig at the people who are ticked that it applies to “foreign” cars. It was also a casual suggestion that journos avoid labels that don’t mean all that much anymore.

I propose a “Cash for Clunkers” program for U.S. senators.

First to go? Joe Lieberman. Trade him in for something that’s efficient and doesn’t lie all the time..

Jay Newton-Small:

progressives like California Senator Dianne Feinstein

As I commented on Michael Scherer’s (similarly) strangely worded post:

Michael Scherer:

RE Obama’s election…as a mostly liberal Democrat

No, as a mostly centrist Democrat who came out against the Iraq occupation at the right time.

There are very, very few liberal Democrats in the Senate.

“Liberalism” ["progressive"] doesn’t mean “voted against John Roberts’ confirmation” or “willing to consider big government programs as a solution to domestic problems” or “courts minority bloc support” or “expresses rhetorical concern over climate change”.

If you aren’t immediately persuaded, Michael Scherer, then ask yourself:

Substantively speaking, what’s the real difference between Barack Obama’s Senatorial record or rhetoric and say, Jay Rockefeller’s or Diane Feinstein’s?

If you answer that question with “Nothing. That’s because Rockefeller/Feinstein is a left-wing, liberal Democrat!”, then you’re obviously listening to John Gibson in your car on the I405 every morning on the way to work. It’s because you exist in a world where everyone to the left of Benito Mussolini is a secret Maoist.

If you answer that question with “Nothing…and yet these people are undoubtedly centrists who have reflexively run to the right of wherever they believe that the left position is. Hmmm…what was Obama’s deal with Joe Lieberman again?”, then you’ve stepped above and out of the binary, tribal trenches the political press corps likes to pass our discourse through, and are describing reality –albeit a reality whose existence Beltway CW hasn’t officially agreed to.

Thanks for reading and considering this, Michael Scherer.

…Or are you simply passing on to us what Feinstein’s staff calls her these days, Jay Newton-Small?

Yeah, progressive and Di Fi do not belong in the same sentence. She is a crook to boot. If there was a functional Senate ethics committee, she and her husband would be parked there.

At least, in the hands of the people who are paid to tell us the truth of things (you’d think they could at least get the politics right, that being their sole obsession). To real progressives words still mean what they really mean.

“Last week we saw the administration’s tendency to miss the mark on economic estimates again with the so-called Cash for Clunkers program…”

Shorter McConnell: “…let’s make sure we end (and don’t have any more) Democratic policies that are successful beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.”

Remember, these are the same lying, traitorous @sshats who wailed and moaned about the adsministration’s decision to try to rescue the automakers and then wailed and moaned again when the automakers had to close some of their dealerships.

Feinstein’s a liberal, no doubt about that–look at her voting record. But when I think “progressive”, she’s not what i have in mind.

Jay , at 4.45 , First Read said the hurdle was passed.

@JNS: Others have expressed reservations that the program applies to foreign, as well as domestic, cars.

Who, besides me? I don’t see that in the Bloomberg link.

“lying, traitorous @sshats”
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Off your meds today?

Please Dianne Feinstein is only interested in making her name higher profile nationally — can anyone say selfish politician thinking about the presidency in 2016 since Hillary is not running?

First it was the public option and now its cars, why doesn’t she just hang a sign around her neck asking for more media coverage.

JNS, where’s your story about one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing or Republicans still can’t walk and chew gum.

House Republicans rally behind the cars program and try to take credit for the boom to car dealerships even though they initially opposed the stimulus while there pals in the Senate try to b lock the program because its too successful and afraid Democrats will get credit.

…Or are you simply passing on to us what Feinstein’s staff calls her these days, Jay Newton-Small?
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You’re implying that she has ever acted otherwise.

Guess what dipsh!t, “conservatives” don’t get to say who the liberals are. You’ve been swallowing Rush’s issue for too long.

Why, waddya got? Anything for the sickness that comes from having our politics dominated by a bunch of mendacious scum dedicated to the service of the rich, elite corporate owners of America and the destruction of Democrats, regardless of how much harm is done to the country in the process?

Damn those GOPers! Obstructionists! The lot of ‘em!

Dianne Feinstein is fine with the cars program as is Boxer, who is the committee chairman said so. So now Jay, tell me where is your post that says, Republicans hopes to throw a wrench in the cars program dashed.

Good point. Ditto.

Dude, I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh.
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But I do think we fundamentally agree–DiFi is no Progressive. Feingold is progressive. Wellstone was progressive. Bernie Sanders is progressive. Heck, I’d even say Jim Webb has more progressive bona fides than DiFi.

” they don’t help folks buy 2009 Hummers.”

JNS-Really? A 2009 hummer gets 18 mpg. What’s the trade in clunker, a M1 Tank?

But the question was: What is a “foreign” car, and what is a “domestic” car?, which is a good point. What do these categories mean now, exactly?

Also, this sentence:

“Others have expressed reservations that the program applies to foreign, as well as domestic, cars.”

does not actually link to an article in which anyone expresses such reservations.

Feinstein might be a Tory in England. She is pro choice, and anti-gun. That doesn’t negate her pro corporate, pro war, pro shoveling money to her husband philosophy.

People, have you forgotten your Beltway gloss?

Moderate: Whatever lies exactly between the Republican position and the Democratic position.

Progressive, liberal, far-left: Whatever lies anywhere to the left of “moderate” (qv)

no a Bradley IFV

On stimuli, Chinese vs. American:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=29b9b3e0-1bd8-4c77-8642-35dc5abe6d9a

So, the Republicans have a problem with giving tax dollars BACK to taxpayers, in the form of a useful product that returns some of the taxpayers’ investments in the auto industry?

Why do Republicans hate the American Taxpayer?

Wow, donovon, by that rationale, why doesn’t the government write me a check right now. I promise I’ll spend it in a way that helps employment.
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http://www.redstate.com/bs/2009/08/03/gibbs-overrules-geithner-summers/

Does this program have a bit of a “broken windows” feel to it?

The stated objections are clearly BS.

As pointed out above, the only difference between a foreign and domestic car is the label, The consumer is the one who benefits most directly followed by the dealer. And even if the EPA ratings of the two cars are identical trading in a 8 year old one for a fresh one off the lot is going to result in savings in both mileage AND emissions.

“progressives like California Senator Dianne Feinstein”
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Sorry folks, nothing in this country will ever work again. The stupid is just too thick. An orderly breakup of the US is the only thing that makes sense.

Glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read this…otherwise my laptop would be ruined.

Question for the day:

Are auto dealers smart enough to recognize they’ve been funding their own destruction with their disproportionate contributions to GOP candidates?

Discuss.

My friend (the Communist who lived in East Germany for a time and who I’m leaning on hard to write a book about his time there) believes this is the inevitable conclusion to the American experiment. If that’s true, I want Washington to become the fifteenth province of Canada, and screw this Parallel cwap.

I already have a fuel-efficient car. Can I just get $4,500 for that? Or do I have to have been stupid and had a gas guzzler before?

And what the F is going on with paragraph breaks! On two threads today, they’ve worked for me and on another, not … !?

Are the high sheriffs drug addled or que?

WOOOOOOOO!!!!

Jay Newton-Small:

This is what a “progressive” sounds like:

Let begin by making something very clear. We all have single payer health care now. We have single payer health care whether we have private insurance, whether we have Medicare, whether we have TriCare through the VA. We take money, we give it to someone and then we go visit doctors. We, some of us, have a choice but most of us really don’t.

Most of us who have health insurance through our businesses can’t just go out and say, “I want to choose another one.” Most of us don’t have a choice to shop around when we are sick to say, “oh, I’ll have my gall bladder removed some other time. I’m going to shop around a little first.” Or, “Never mind my gall bladder, can you work on my liver a little bit.”

So the mythology that there is a lot of choice that consumers have now is just that, it’s mythology. Under single payer plan the way that it would be structured is that you pay a payroll tax, then you choose a doctor, you go to the doctor, and from your payroll taxes, or the taxes you pay in other ways, they reimburse the doctor.That’s it.

Is this guy on Meet the Press next to Mitch McConnell?
Does he sound like anyone quoted by any major news organization on the subject of what to do about the health care system in this country?

More to the point,
does this sound like Sen. Dianne Feinstein to anyone with ears?

Obama: Health reform must not worsen deficits
(07-25) 04:00 PDT Washington – — President Obama said Friday that he shares the concern of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other moderate Democrats that a health care overhaul not compound the nation’s deficits, but downplayed worries from governors about being saddled with additional burdens on Medicaid.

“We’re not going to set up something that’s not fully paid for,” Obama said. “I agree with her on that. That’s been my criteria from the start.”

Let’s see…“responsible” talking points about the deficit –as long as the profligacy in question doesn’t involve virtually unlimited expenditures on invasions and occupations? …or blank checks against the nation’s currency to indefinitely prop our inept and corrupt banking and financial elites up in their current positions? Check…that sounds like centrism.

More from the President:

Obama shot back against complaints that he is leading the nation to “government-run health care,” calling such complaints part of an “ancient ideological battle” that ignores the fact that 60 percent of Americans already receive government-provided health care under Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits.

Even workers with employer-provided insurance benefit from a costly government subsidy that excludes those benefits from taxation, Obama said.

So he’s not a movement conservative, that’s for sure. He thinks that an “ancient ideological battle” has no place in our governance. He’s so right: if only we hadn’t been so foolish as to engage in such terrible ideological struggles, we’d have avoided that horribly partisan vote in Congress that authorized the dunce Bush to pointlessly invade Iraq….oh, wait…

And then this:

He gets at least as many complaints from people who want a “single-payer” plan entirely run by the government, he said.

“None of the plans … come remotely close to a single-payer plan, none of them,” Obama said. “And that’s to the consternation of a lot of people who are advocating for single-payer.

“We inherit a tradition of employer-based health care, of a strong private marketplace for health care and the idea that you would scrap that is unworkable,” he said. “We need to build on the system we have, which blends government programs with a strong private marketplace to achieve a uniquely American result.“

A “uniquely American result”? Isn’t what we have now “uniquely American”, in than we pay the most and get mediocre results?

The United States now devotes one-sixth of its economy to medicine. Divvy that up, and health care will cost the typical household roughly $15,000 this year, including the often-invisible contributions by employers. That is almost twice as much as two decades ago (adjusting for inflation). It’s about $6,500 more than in other rich countries, on average.

We may not be aware of this stealth $6,500 health care tax, but if you take a moment to think, it makes sense. Over the last 20 years, health costs have soared, and incomes have grown painfully slowly. The two trends are directly connected: employers had to spend more money on benefits, leaving less for raises.

In exchange for the $6,500 tax, we receive many things. We get cutting-edge research and heroic surgeries. But we also get fabulous amounts of waste — bureaucratic and medical.

One thing we don’t get is better health than other rich countries, whether it’s Canada, France, Japan or many others. In some categories, like emergency room care, this country seems to do better. In others, like chronic-disease care, it seems to do worse. “The fact that we spend all this money and don’t have better outcomes than other countries is a sign of how poorly we’re doing,” says Dr. Alan Garber of Stanford University. “We should be doing way better.”

Does the solemn observance of “a tradition of employer-based health care, of a strong private marketplace for health care” sound in the least bit progressive, Jay Newton-Small?

In what world is the President “mostly liberal” (according to Michael Scherer) and Sen. Feinstein a “progressive”?

What evidence could possibly persuade you that these things are the case? Who told you that? Don’t you care about your credibility on these matters at all? Don’t you realize that you sound like you don’t know what you’re talking about, that you’re just regurgitating what you’ve read from “Serious” people who’ve covered the Hill all of their lives without any real analysis whatsoever?

Or do you just feigning not to know what the words “liberal” or “progressive” represent…are you essentially advertising illiteracy so as to appear non-ideological?

Do you ever think about these things before you write, Jay Newton-Small?

What did Harry Reid have to say?

Jim Manley, a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said of the statements by the three senators, “This is encouraging news, but in the Senate, where any one senator can stall things, we still need to reach agreement with the Republicans so we can get this through the chamber.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/business/04clunkers.html?_r=1&hp

Sorry, that should be “Or are you just feigning…”

It’s a pretty easy prediction w/ the Roman Empire and the Russian empire as examples. Its the ‘orderly’ part that is worrying. I think it highly unlikely that it will be.

SZ,
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First off, I’d say that’s not the only thing JNS is feigning. Knowing that you’re addressing more than one deeply flawed “journalist,” where she is concerned, why in the world would she need to be precise in her terms?
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“Don’t you care about your credibility on these matters at all?”
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Credibility with whom Stuart? With you, me or the rabble on the left? It’s not only Versailles that could care less–many of the commenters here seem to have a hard time differentiating between Feingold and Obama, between Kucinich and Hoyer. Many seem to think that by definition, our democrat president is therefore inherently progressive.
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As for “terrible ideological struggles,” yes, aren’t they distasteful to elites. The abolition movement, women’s suffrage, civil rights, Nat. Farm Workers Assoc… Shorthand for fights by the people against the powerful.

Oregon JC:

It’s too much, it’s just too much inaccuracy to take.

If this keeps up, next we’ll be reading all sorts of Serious analysis about the strategies of “liberal Rahm Emanuel”, or “progressive Harold Ford, Jr”, or “libertarian Kim Jong-Il”.

Ughh, I just threw up in my mouth. Most “progressives” think DiFi at the least should be out of the Senate instead of bogarting a safe Dem seat for the Lieberdems, and in a just world would be in jail.