Are You Happy With What is Going on in Washington?

The reason for the title is because I have two topics I'd like to discuss in this post. I just got back from a short vacation and had no time to discuss both points as they came up at the end of last week.

1st topic: Hate Crime Law and the Defense bill.

So in case you weren't paying attention last week homosexuality got added as a defined "hate crime." I'm not going to go into further details that crime done against anyone regardless of race, gender, beliefs, sexual preference, etc is hateful and so the term "Hate Crime" is somewhat redundant from my point of view or it should apply to all victims of crime, not just defined groups. My real point is to discuss how something like this gets tacked onto the defense bill, which is defined (by me) as the bill to outline the defense of our country. What does a qualifying group of people that get hate crime designation have to do with the defense of our our country?

I'm not opposed to discussing/proposing such a bill in legislation that is in the same category, such as crime. But this goes on all the time with various bills and what really offends me is when they tack on what was commonly referred to as "pork" during the last campaign, to a bill that will pass that has nothing to do with the "pork" item, just to get it through since it might not pass otherwise. This is part of the dirty deal making that happens in congress that must stop!!

I propose that bills must stay on topic. Perhaps they'd all be shorter. I doubt it, since they want to drone on long enough so that no one will bother to read them.

Topic 2: Cash For Clunkers, Success or Failure?

Not too long ago I posted on what defined the success or failure of the cash for clunkers program. On Thursday Edumunds.com posted what I would consider to be my definition of success or failure of it.

If you haven't read the article, check it out.
http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/159446/article.html

Basically speaking, they determined that as of a result of the program 125,000 additional vehicles were sold as a result of the program. All other vehicles purchased during the program would have been purchased whether they got the rebate applied to their new purchase or not.
The program cost a total of $3 billion. That comes out to $24,000/additional car sold.

To be fair they did determine that some people that were going to purchase cars had no intentions of trading in an old car, but this isn't quantified, nor are the reasons stated for why they wouldn't have traded in that old car. So this may or may not provide evidence supporting environmental successes.

So what do you think now? Is spending $24,000 per additional car sold worth it to you? Have you changed your mind on the success or failure of the program? Do you find this indicative of how the government runs things? I do.

I would like to see the same analysis done on the new home rebate program. And yet they intend to extend this. (If they didn't already do it while I was gone.)

Do you really want them in charge of health care? Let me know what you think about all of this.