Cash for Clunking Doctors
It has come to my attention that our numerous trolls, illiterates, and Palin-bangers are upset about Dane’s trashing of the nation’s most prominently vapid GILF*. Their incohate bleating, weeping, and gnashing of teeth have inspired me to write a post I was going to write anyway, only on the clock instead of this afternoon. Way to go, chums.
Yesterday the LA Times ran a pretty good piece on Washington’s latest completely wasteful boondoggle: Cash for Clunkers. Unless you’ve been living under a rock or a bridge like the commenters a post down, you’re undoubtedly aware that the government is offering a $4,500 rebate on “clunkers” toward the purchase of a new car. Aside from effectively establishing a price floor on the used market and maybe pricing a bunch of people out, the program does not apply to any car manufactured before 1984. Why? Good old regulatory capture and political economy.
The restrictions were pushed by lobbyists for the Specialty Equipment Market Assn., a Diamond Bar group that represents companies that sell parts and services to classic and antique car collectors. The group, as well as classic car enthusiasts, have opposed cash for clunkers because they don’t want older vehicles to be destroyed.
When the proposals for a clunker buyback program surfaced early this year, the specialty equipment association opposed the entire concept because such a program could shrink the size of the market for aftermarket parts. The association eventually got lawmakers to adopt the age limit.
“We are very pleased that Congress was able to include that in the program,” said Stuart Gosswein, director of regulatory affairs at the association.
The association represents more than 7,000 companies that make all manner of auto-related products, including reproduction Model T tires and AMC Gremlin upholstery. The powerful interest group has won legislative battles nationwide to protect owners of classic cars and hot rods from laws covering vehicle noise, emissions tests and much else.
Now, you might be asking exactly what that has to do with the current healthcare shouting match (debate would be far too generous a term), but here’s the rub: this is how the political process operates. Some politican proposes something, and then the special interest lobbies work very hard to make sure their interests are protected. It’s a problem of concentrated benefit and distributed costs. So, what will happen with the healthcare reform is not some platonic ideal of government-backed/socialist care but a conglomeration of rules and regulations that prop-up the existing insurance lobby at the expense of the taxpayer. To be clear, even the platonically ideal single-payer solution would be an awful idea for reasons that Megan McArdle over at The Atlantic has catalogued pretty well; but what we are likely to get is probably much worse than that. More expensive than the status quo, less effective, and in the long-run detrimental to innovation and improvement.
Still, all of that being the case does not make Sarah Palin any smarter.
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* To be clear anyone who thinks Sarah Palin belongs anywhere other than treasurer of the local Junior League is so deluded as to be worthless as a conversationalist and, perhaps, a human being. I am looking at YOU, John McCain.
