Cash For Clunkers: Staggering Insanity

A note from the editor of the Bike Commute Blog:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090731/ap_on_go_co/us_cash_for_clunkers

The absolute insanity of this is just staggering. Transit is starving, Amtrak is wheezing, bicyclists and pedestrians lack adequate facilities, yet the government gladly tosses billions and billions to motorists. It's like a giant Oprah show: "Everyone gets a new car!"

Worst of all, it appears the environmental advocacy community completely laid down for this. I even got a message from the Sierra Club: "Put Cash for Clunkers to Good Use": http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageNavigator/LTE_CashForClunkers

Where's the environmental benefit? The 1,000 gallons or so of energy "embedded" in the manufacture of the existing clunker will be crushed, so the new more fuel efficient consumer can save ~50 gallons a year? Huh?Where was the concession? Say a $1 a gallon tax on gas in exchange for this freebie to motorists?

And don't get me started on the social justice inequity of all this (low-income transit riders facing cuts and fare hikes, while middle-class suburbanites buy new Ford Escape Hybrid SUVs.)