Totally The Same

So, the difficulties the Obama administration have had with the government "Cash For Clunkers" program for $4,500 rebates on car trade-ins (lack of money, busy websites) is apparently equivalent to the difficulties the Bush administration had with the flooding of New Orleans (thousands of people dead, billions in damage).

So sayeth The Village.

Last night, Fox News aired a clip of a woman at a Philadelphia town hall meeting over the weekend berating Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) about health care reform. “What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. … And you want us to believe that a government that can’t even run a Cash for Clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy,” the woman complained. “I think that there is anger out there, real anger,” said NPR’s Mara Liasson, responding to the clip. She then called the woman’s concern “legitimate” and compared the Cash for Clunkers program to Hurricane Katrina:

LIASSON: I thought that woman actually asked a pretty legitimate question — especially Cash for Clunkers is like a mini- Katrina here. I mean it’s not good to start a program and not be able to execute it.

Nice.

First of all, what the hell is wrong with this woman? How is the disaster in New Orleans and especially the government response to it (long delays, FEMA mismanagement, taking years to get money to people) anything...anything like Cash For Clunkers running out of money because it was successful? Is Mara Liasson mad? That's the most idiotic comparison I've heard in quite some time, that's like saying waiting at the DMV to get your driver's license renewed is like "a mini-Bataan Death March." That's horrible.

Second of all, the GOP seems to be convinced that Cash For Clunkers is the worst government program ever. I've said this before: it's the one clear and shining example of the stimulus program actually delivering the goods to people, and the GOP is doing everything it can to convince you that it has already failed. That moronic meme, "Government can't run X, government ergo can't run health care" is everywhere, "X" in the example has been Cash for Clunkers, the Post Office, the DMV, schools, prisons, you name the much-maligned government service, it's proof that the government should never be allowed to run anything.

And yet, the government has done a pretty good job with Medicare and Medicaid. It's the health insurance comapnies and their recission practices that are the problem. Like it or not, somebody has to provide those government services. The latest examples of private contractors stepping in to "do it better" ultimately results in companies like say, Blackwater.

No, government is not perfect. But there are some services it should provide to the people as a matter of common good, and health insurance and health care options should be one of them.