I am a Hypocrite

Last year, while ranting on the waste of the government stimulus programs, I did a cash-for-clunkers deal, and I noted it at the time. Now I have publicly noted that I thought the program was a total waste of taxpayer money. Considering those who needed to buy anyway, the cost was way out of order in comparison to the benefit. Nonetheless, I had a clunker on its last leg and needed a car so I traded it in on a new car and took advantage of the program.

Now I realize that it is highly hypocritical of me to rant against the program and then utilize it, but I stand by my decision. And (Bill), here is why:

1. The primary stimulus target of the program was to support car companies, not consumers. Me using the program did just this.
2. A secondary objective of the program was to get gas guzzling old cars off the road and replace them with more fuel efficient vehicles. That I achieved. I sold an oil leaking, smoke spewing, 15 or so MPG 1995 Ford Explorer and replaced it with a new Mazda 3 that averaged around 29 MPG in mixed driving, nearly doubling my mileage.
3. I realize a potential third objective of the program was for those who could not afford a new car to be able to buy one. Now I consider this objective to be well down the list. Otherwise, if you were the government really trying to support consumers to get a car they need, you would not qualify the program with needing to have a gas guzzling clunker and needing to buy a new more efficient car. If the program were truly designed to help consumers in need it would have applied to any trade in and would have been available for obtaining used cars too. Indeed, if you want to help consumers in need, put an income limit on it. But no, it was not designed to benefit consumers - it was designed to help the auto manufacturers - and at a pretty big cost to taxpayers.

So if it was not worth the cost to us as taxpayers, why am I being a hypocrite and taking advantage of it, you ask? I can only say (a) I am helping to pay for it with tax dollars and this is pretty much the only stimulus I have seen potentially benefiting me, (b) someone is going to use it whether I do or not and (c) I am serving the primary and secondary purpose of the program, so why not.

Let me add that I more recently - as in today -traded in the car I got in the program. Actually I traded that in and sold another one with poor gas mileage and used both to get a good car that I can drive all year around that gets decent gas mileage. Am I serving the purpose of the cash-for-clunkers program? You decide. Personally, I like the few thousand that went to me much more than the hundreds of billions of dollars that went to the likes of Goldman, AIG and Washington Mutual. At least I used the money and put it back into the system. The financial instutitions, on the other hand, seem to be gaming the system and hoarding their dollars.

Disclosures: None.