Garden State Patriot

You may recall back in June, I wrote two posts on the silly ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program spurred on by Congressman Rothman. In my initial post I questioned just how the program would be paid for – and in my second post the Heritage Foundation affirmed my concern, indicating that only $1B of the necessary $4B needed for the program was set aside.

Well, apparently Heritage’s prediction has become reality. According to the AP, the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program is being forced to a grinding halt because of a lack of funds.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Congressional officials say the government plans to suspend the popular “cash for clunkers” program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases. The Transportation Department called congressional offices late Thursday to alert them to the decision to halt the program, which offered owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns of large backlogs in the system, prompting the suspension. 

Further Entangles Government in Market: The program has already spent $150 million and has another $800 million to $850 million in obligations. What that means is that the nation’s auto dealers have already paid car buyers almost a billion dollars but are still waiting for their cash from the federal government. The USA Today reports: “Carmakers and dealers have booked expensive advertising to capitalize on buyers’ interest in CARS, and now will be left promoting a tie-in with a discontinued government program — one that wasn’t supposed to end until Nov. 1. “Disappointed,” said Chrysler spokesman Scott Brown. “It’s too late to recall the ads,” says Beau Boeckmann of Galpin Ford, the nation’s largest Ford dealer, in Los Angeles. “We had increased our ad budget to get the word out. We are very heavy on radio, newspaper and getting direct mail together,” Boeckmann says. “Now what do you tell people when they walk in” for a clunker deal? “It’s tough.”

Honestly, this is just comical. All these auto dealers thought they had a great thing going, spent money to advertise and now the program has been halted (in fact, I just heard an ad on the radio a minute ago). On top of that they don’t yet have the money from the government to pay people their “Cash for Clunkers” refunds.

And these are the people who we should empower to run our healthcare? Egads! 

Here in New Jersey, we have a program called LIHEAP which is aimed at providing poor folks with assistance for their winter heating bills. Just this week, Governor Corzine announced the final distribution for LIHEAP of over $600,000, bringing the grand total for 2008-2009 to a whopping $170M.

Now, for argument’s sake let’s put aside whether the rest of us should be subsidizing the energy bills of the poor. Instead let’s assume that we accept the premise and that none of us want to see our fellow citizens freeze in the winter.

If we were just helping the downtrodden, this program would be acceptable to us. However, we are not merely subsidizing the poor. We are in fact subsidizing people in the middle class. According to the story at NJ.com, households who are 225% above the poverty level are eligible for LIHEAP thanks to the ‘ever-generous with your money’ Corzine.

I looked up the federal poverty levels here. A family of four is considered poor if the household takes in less than $22,050 a year. Multiply that by 225% and you are looking at a total annual income of $49,612.50. Now, certainly a household at that income level is able to, and should, pay their own energy bills.

And there’s more. The NJ.com article states:

Households heated by gas will receive an average of $1,289 per household and those heated by electric will receive an average of $982 per household.  Gas and electric figures include USF benefits.  Households heated by deliverable fuel will receive an average of $1,200 per household.

Now, based on my own experience in heating my home with electrical units, I would guesstimate that a normal bill for a family of four in the winter would be roughly $300 a month. Thus, $1000 in LIHEAP assistance is not really assistance. It is full blown welfare. We are simply paying the bulk of, if not the entire, energy bill for other people in our state who are not just under the poverty levels, but are in fact in the middle class.

And Governor Corzine thinks that when the economy is bad, and many in this state have lost their jobs, that we still owe it to middle class people to do even more in the way of programs like LIHEAP. But if he were honest what he would say that he is doing this for his own desire for power. After all, that is the end result when Democrats like Corzine make as many people depenedent on government as possible. And that is exactly what he has done with LIHEAP.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Assemblywoman Addiego and Assemblyman Rudder are crying over spilled milk. Well, maybe more like missing milk. Over in Camden, in the districts formerly known as Abbott, a lot of the calcium-laden white stuff – close to 100,000 units a year - has gone without a trace. And Camden alone has wasted some $1.5M in free lunches alone in the 2007-2008 school year. Here’s the story.

Assemblywoman Dawn Marie Addiego and Assemblyman Scott Rudder today requested an investigation by the State Attorney General’s office into rampant waste and possible fraud and theft in the Camden School District’s Food Service Department.

“We have been demanding accountability from school districts like Camden and other former Abbott Districts that have 98 percent of their budgets funded by the state’s taxpayers,” said Rudder, R-Burlington. “This is why, in the interest of the taxpayers, we must put these districts under the microscope and hold them responsible for every dollar they spend.”

The legislators sent a letter to Attorney General Anne Milgram asking her to launch an investigation after a consultant’s conclusion that food service personnel failed to collect a half-million dollars in meal fees and that $1.5 million in food was wasted during the 2007/08 fiscal year.

“We are stunned by this egregious abuse of taxpayer money,” said Addiego, R-Burlington. “It is difficult to imagine that mismanagement alone could account for a financial loss of this magnitude.”

The consultant’s report by Edvocate included some striking findings: “The department has some of the worst practices ever observed…  “The cost overruns in the food cannot be explained through waste and overproduction… “The district is missing 93,967 units of milk annually, and losing 1,308 preferred meals on a daily basis.”

“We need to find out if this is a case of rampant incompetence or if there is fraud or theft involved,” said Addiego. “If the Attorney General finds evidence of criminality, the courts will handle it. If poor management accounts for it, we need to replace the people who are in charge, all the way up to the superintendent with her $226,000 per year contract.”

“This is an unconscionable violation of the taxpayers’ trust. It calls for immediate action, before one more dollar of public money is lost or stolen. It is time to hold the Camden School District accountable for its actions,” said Rudder.

One wonders just what a superintendent making $2226,000 a year is doing with their time. If anyone of us were making that kind of money in the private sector and couldn’t account for $1.5M in product, we’d be out on the street.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

 Led Zeppelin IV

 The Beatles – Abbey Road

 U2 – The Joshua Tree

 AC/DC – Back In Black

 Journey – Escape

 The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street

 Pink Floyd – The Dark Of The Moon