Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is cheerleading for the CARS program. As the Senate gears up to consider whether to pump more money into the bailout program, Lahood is crowing about the success of CARS:
“the government has proved we can get money out the door and sell almost 160,000 cars.”
Really?
Congress and various news agencies have been requesting information about the CARS program. To date, no information has been provided. Over the weekend, when LaHood was asked whether and when, the transportation department would release information related to CARS he replied:
“I can’t think of any reason why we wouldn’t do it.”
Apparently LaHood and others also thought of any reason to or how to release information about CARS.
LaHood can continue to crow but at this point, we have nothing, other than the word of an Obama administration official, as to whether this program is successful or not. I think we’ve all learned this week just how much we can trust the assertion of any Obama administration official!
While we don’t know whether the program is a success or not, under ANY definition, we can conclude that at least part of LaHood’s assessment is faulty:
“the government has proved we can get money out the door and sell almost 160,000 cars.”
Well, no, actually you can’t prove that nor have you been successful at it! As simple as the CARS program is, the government was completely unprepared to administer the program. To date, there is still a significant number of applications for CARS that have not been processed and confirmed. This is probably part of the reason why they can’t get reports to Congress!
