Free Republic

Once again, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with her sidekicks Waxman and Dingell, has used legislative "sleight-of-hand" to force through the “Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act” (H.R.2751) with S.510 attached. Just today, the Bill passed on a vote of 215 For and 144 Against. It is rich irony indeed that the "Cash for Clunkers" reauthorization bill (H.R.2751) has provided the ride for S.510, another “clunker” that will unleash an avalanche of useless, business-killing paperwork upon the food industry and a swarm of parasitic FDA bureaucrats. The result will be, as we have said all along, a food...

After investing billions of taxpayer dollars in two domestic automakers to help them survive the dramatic downturn in car sales along with an enduring recession, Congress and the Obama administration want to help jumpstart the industry. The battery cables of choice for this operation — [1] HR2751 Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS), also dubbed “Cash for Clunkers” — is roughly patterned after a similar automotive stimulus scheme in Europe. If it worked on the Continent, it must be a good thing, as the current beltway logic asserts. The idea of encouraging people to retire their old relics of...