Word: cashed
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...Others expected to cash in through the program are JPMorgan Chase, which could collect up to $3.4 billion when its EMC Mortgage subsidiary is included, and Wells Fargo, which could get up to $3.1 billion when its Wachovia subsidiaries are included, the report said. Even a former subsidiary of Lehman Brothers, which helped underwrite the subprime toxic loans, is bellying up to the bar, the report said. (See high-end homes that won't sell...
...poked people with a stick: 40 years of issuing health warnings couldn't reduce smoking as much as hiking taxes so that a pack can cost upwards of $9. But nowadays, Congress would much rather reward than penalize, and bribery as policy has a modern elegance to it. Cash for Clunkers didn't involve intricate algorithms or a 1,400-page appropriations bill. The only debate was over how much sugar was needed to sweeten the pot. That first billion was supposed to last a few months; when it ran out in a week, a bipartisan coalition voted to squirt...
...these are penny-size ideas. Now that trillion has replaced billion in our fiscal conversations, the scope for inventive incentives is vast. The cost of treating obesity has doubled in a decade, to $147 billion. So how about Cash for Chunkers: we get to trade in that extra 20 pounds for a coupon good at the local farm stand. Roads and bridges crumbling? Why bother allocating $27 billion in stimulus money when we could pay people to reroute or, better yet, stay home? California plans on releasing at least 37,000 inmates to ease prison overcrowding and save $1 billion...
...this the essential paradox of the age of Obama, that we have to destroy the village in order to save it, bust the budget in hopes we'll someday balance it, play to self-interest to promote the national interest? Just as the Cash for Clunkers frenzy reached its peak, the Administration quietly released new deficit projections, which pointed to a $9 trillion gap over 10 years. In the middle of a national nervous breakdown over out-of-control spending, we took a summer break from puritanical fretting and got all excited about a federal subsidy for something we already...
...that it's neither liberal nor conservative, just deeply pragmatic--the most American ideology of all. You do whatever works, throw ideas at the problem and see what sticks. Look at our history, and the not-quite-rational patchwork of minimal solutions has a decent track record. If Cash for Clunkers is really all it takes to get us up and moving again, that $3 billion will look like the smartest money Washington spent all year...