$285 BILLION GOVERNMENT PROGRAM = GREAT ‘FLUSHING’ SOUND

$285 BILLION GOVERNMENT PROGRAM = GREAT ‘FLUSHING’ SOUND
(Don Boudreaux)
The nearly $3 billion “Cash for Clunkers” program approved by Congress in 2009 did little to boost the environment and created few jobs, a new study released Wednesday found.
A Brookings Institution study found the $2.85 billion program “provided a short-term boost in vehicle sales, which were pulled forward from sales that would have occurred in subsequent months. There was a small increase in employment but the implied cost per job created ($1.4 million) was far higher than other fiscal stimulus programs.”
…. so starts this report in the Detroit News.
(HT Dan Polsby)
A question: How much criticism will Alan Blinder receive for his failed prediction that this program would create plenty of jobs?  Here’s about as perfect an example as reality will ever serve up of a government policy built on the absurd premise that prosperity can spring from destruction – a policy, of course, pushed on Keynesian grounds.  And yet people will continue, I’m sure, to promote such counter-productive destructive policies as creators of prosperity, and these people will continue to be hailed by legions of intellectuals as being “reality-based” and “scientific.”