Cash for Clunkers A Screwed-up Bureaucracy Says A Liberal Democrat? How Can We Expect Them To Run A Healthcare Program For Millions of Americans?

HotAir
Cash for Clunkers a screwed-up bureaucracy, says … a liberal Democrat?
written by Ed Morrissey
August 17, 2009

Bear in mind that the Congressman making this public isn’t a member of Republican leadership, isn’t a Republican at all, or even a Blue Dog Democrat. In fact, it’s the same Congressman who convinced the liberal activists at Netroots Nation that he represented their interests better than incumbent Senator Arlen Specter (R D-PA). The Cash for Clunkers program has only paid on 2% of the applications submitted by dealers, while over 80% of those applications have been rejected for petty bureaucratic nonsense:

The federal government has only reimbursed auto dealers for 2 percent of the claims they’ve submitted through the popular “cash for clunkers” program, a Pennsylvania congressman said, calling on the Obama administration to help speed up the process.

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., called for “immediate action” to address the problem in a statement Sunday, after writing a letter to President Obama Saturday expressing his concerns.

In the letter, Sestak said only 2 percent of claims have been paid and that four of every five applications have been “rejected for minor oversight.”

In recent days, auto dealers across the country have been complaining that the reimbursement payments are slow to process. And they said some of their applications were being rejected because of apparent procedural issues. The statistics Sestak cited suggest those complaints are not based on isolated incidents.

The program was supposedly so wildly successful that the Obama administration requested and received an extra $2 billion in financing just as Congress went on its recess. If they’ve only paid 2% of the applications, where did the original $1 billion go? What will happen to the next $2 billion?

And of course, the big question: if the federal government can’t run a program designed to kill a few hundred thousand cars, how can we expect them to run a program to keep hundreds of millions of Americans alive and in good health?