No Word On Whether He’ll Buy The Extended Warranty From Himself

As part of his effort to “create manufacturing jobs for folks who are making cars,” President Obama announced yesterday that he will be accelerating plans to use $285 million from the stimulus bill to buy 17,600 new cars for government workers.

The news was welcomed on a number of fronts:

First, the impact this will have on the domestic automobile industry and the hard working families who depend on it cannot be overstated as it can take, at current sales levels, more than half a day to sell 17,600 cars.

It is not clear how quickly the automakers can ramp up production to deal with this unanticipated windfall in sales, but we do know that the day those assembly lines come to life, they will create thousands of manufacturing jobs, not just for that morning, but possibly well past dinner.

Factor in the multiplier effect with these workers using their unexpected earnings to purchase several sandwiches, some lottery tickets, and a pay-per-view movie and it’s pretty much win-win all around.

Second, while the 17,600 cars will be purchased exclusively from GM, Ford, and Chrysler, this should not in any way call into question the President’s sincerity in supporting free trade. He had no intention of freezing out foreign manufacturers, it just so happens that none of them had the color he wanted in stock and the domestic brands promised that if Obama signed a contract before the close of business that day, they’d see if they couldn’t get him some free pin striping. (But they’d have to check with the manager for that.) We're still awaiting confirmation that the President got his driver's license back after it was somehow "lost" when GM CEO Fritz Henderson went to make a photo copy of it.

Third, the White House proudly points out that because they are requiring the new vehicles to be 10% more fuel efficient than the vehicles they will replace, the program “will reduce gasoline consumption by 1.3 million gallons per year and prevent 26 million pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.”

You could point out that life cycle analysis demonstrates that the production of $285 million worth of automobiles will ultimately cause over 330 million pounds of additional CO2 to enter the atmosphere, but that would make you one of those “the glass is 9/10ths empty” pessimists.

Around here, the glass is always 1/10th full.

The president also said that he would dedicate $15 million to study advanced technologies, such as “compressed natural gas and hybrid buses, and all-electric vehicles.”

Good thing we killed all those silly unproven missile defense systems!

And finally, government workers will get shiny new cars.  After all, you don't want federal civil servants driving around in crappy old cars.  Like the one you drive.

Okay, so the economic impact will be negligible, it violates pledges to support free trade, it will add to our total CO2 emissions not to mention the budget deficit and has you buying new cars for other people that you can't afford to buy for yourself.

But, as some observers note, “it is symbolic.”

We’re just not sure exactly what it’s symbolic of.

J.

RELATED: "How About, "Bills For Blunders," Instead?" Our take on the government's "Cash for Clunkers" vehicle voucher program.