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February 23, 2010
Cash for Caulkers - Another Stupid Idea
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at February 23, 2010 5:06 PM
The President-who-never-had-a-real-job-in-his-entire-life decided it would be a good idea to borrow/print $5 billion (maybe up to $23 Billion) and spend it doing something people are perfectly capable of doing for themselves without Government Money: Cash for Caulkers. So far, it's been about as successful as any other government program, which is to say its wasted oodles of money for almost no result. Bureaucratic red tape combined with Obama's edict that union wages be paid to home repairers has resulted in less than 10,000 homes being weatherized at an average cost somewhere north of $57,000 per house.
And that's just the beginning. Australia's version of Cash for Caulkers resulted not just in scam artists getting rich by ripping off the taxpayers, it actually killed some people.
The Rudd government's insulation installation scheme worked like this: anyone with the wherewithal to set themselves up as an installer could do so, and then gain access to funds set aside by the Environment Department.That's basically it. Well, you did have to insulate the odd house here and there, but there's insulating and then there's insulating, you know what I mean? No old biddy is going to crawl into her ceiling to check if you've dutifully filled every crevice or if you've just chucked a few batts around instead before hitting the next mark down the street.
So, in the one fantastic scheme, you've got these three elements: simple labour requirements; low overheads, mainly limited to warehousing, transport and wages; and no customer approval between work and payment.
The first hint that something was wrong with the scheme came with reports that an exceptional number of installations were costed right up to the $1600 limit. Big place, multiple levels, lots of roof area? About $1600 should do it. Granny flat with one window? Let's see now ... that'll come to exactly $1600.
Suddenly the number of registered installers exploded to 7000. Most, of course, had no background in insulation. Not coincidentally, the occasional roof began to explode as well. And workers began getting killed.
Some people think the way out of recession is for the Government to spend billions of dollars on idiotic make-work projects. That makes about as much sense as an unemployed person deciding his only hope is to max out his credit cards buying an army of Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men.
