Let’s get this straight.
Nationalized health care — which would replace greedy insurance companies with overwhelmed government bureaucrats as middlemen between patient and doctor [that’s the image being sold], ending the tragedy of uninsured and underinsured Americans — is socialism.
Rescuing banks — that award huge bonuses to undeserving executives and neared bankruptcy because of loose loan policies, from presuming they could continue to sell defaulting loans to other financial institutions, because the world can’t function without banks — is socialism.
Bailing out automakers — that continued to refine SUVs into ever-bigger fuel guzzlers while blowing off developing gasoline sippers, ignoring sales trends and oil prices, and mismanaged themselves in about every department — is socialism.
Yet, Congress and the president providing $1 billion from which new car buyers receive rebates of $3,500 to $4,500 for trading in older vehicles and/or gas guzzlers — that is not socialism?
And, the House voting Friday 316-109 for an additional $2 billion to fund the CARS program (Car Allowance Rebate System, commonly known as Cash for Clunkers), because regular Joe and Jane Americans plowed through the first billion by Friday, July 31, in this “stimulus” program that began July 24 and had been expected to last to Nov. 1 (with the Senate voting next week) — that follows along the laissez-faire capitalism as prescribed by Palin and Limbaugh?
Therefore, Republicans and cautious Blue Dog Democrats must have opposed it, owing to the program’s seeminess, not to mention the blatant burden on the federal budget deficit. But the current tally shows the House with 262 Democrats and 178 Republicans, according to Roll Call. Conservatives of convenience?
The rebate has so much going for it — clever way to move thirsty cars off our roads and make way for hybrids quickly, giving the auto industry (makers to dealers) a boost at the marketplace and not just an open-ended check, and last that on a national scale it’s not terribly expensive — but isn’t it interesting that the usual opponents are fairly quiet?
Since textbook socialism is about helping the little guy and the heck with the capitalist cronies, are pinko programs OK in more circumstances than commentators would have us believe? Interesting questions.
