So cash for clunkers is the Barry admins idea according to Rich

I pointed out that cash for clunkers was just a variation of what we have already been doing through the tax code. You get tax credits for purchasing energy efficient cars. You also get a charitable contribution if you donate your clunker to charity. The only difference is in cash for clunkers you have to use the money to buy a car now and your old car is destroyed instead of going to a charity.

However the current form is certainly not something that the Democratic party in this country dreamed up. From Barry's own mouth before the plan passed: “Such fleet modernization programs, which provide a generous credit to consumers who turn in old, less fuel-efficient cars and purchase cleaner cars, have been successful in boosting auto sales in a number of European countries.”

Our current plan is mostly modeled after the one that has been in place for a while in Germany. Proponents of the cash-for-clunkers program stated when it was first proposed as a federal plan that Germany’s plan, which offers rebates slightly smaller than in the proposed U.S. version, shows how the government can accelerate the modernization of the auto fleet—and make it cleaner at the same time.

The plan has also been in use in some states, such as California, which have run limited versions of a cash-for-clunkers program for years.

Like I said earlier it is such a shame when someone takes credit for another's idea.

A bigger shame is what will happen to the auto industry when the cash runs out. Maybe they should have dome this before the government pumped all those billions into GM and Chrysler. You think that if sales would have increased dramatically that the government would have had to take control of GM? Of course that would have defeated the goal of Barry's of having the government run US business as well.