The Daily Show has a typically insightful piece on the most often ignored rule in Washington: the law of unintended consequences. The well meaning Cash for Clunkers program has upset a very unlikely constituency, demolition derby enthusiasts. Unlike vintage auto collectors, who succeed in negotiating an exemption for gas guzzlers over 25 years old, the massive cars favored by demolition derby drivers were the primary target of the car buyers’ tax rebate.
First, intrepid Daily Show corespondent Josh Gad climbs into the passenger seat of one of these increasingly rarer vehicles to get the perspective of derby car industry. Gad then travels to the capital to ask Austan Goolsbee, the normally good-humored member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, if he knows “how hard it is to find a piece of s*** American car right now.” Goolsbee was not amused.
While Gad hilariously overplays the grievances of derby drivers, their complaints can now be added to the buyers’ remorse environmentalists and deficit hawks have had for the ill-advised Cash for Clunkers program.
