CNN is reporting that the Cash for Clunkers program has already run through their $1 Billion (yeah, with a “B”) in only 4 days. To qualify for the program someone must buy a car that gets a 2-10 MPG better than the car they are trading in. You can get $3,500-$4,500 from the program. If I use the lowest numbers, that means that a minimum of 285,714 vehicles were purchased under the program. Each of those cars must get a minimum of 2 mpg better than their previous car, so we just improved the nations gas mileage by 571,428 mpg.

Why is this significant? After the oil embargo of the 70’s (yeah, I don’t remember it), the US and most countries enacted minimum mpg rules for all vehicles. Non-US countries also levied high taxes on gasoline that are still in place. This continued until the mid-80’s when the US stopped raising the minimum and other countries continued raising it until the minimum mpg got to the mid-30’s.

This had a dramatic affect on oil producing companies as demand nose-dived. It also kept prices of gasoline below $1 until the mid-90’s (10 years after the US stopped raising the minimum). Imagine what this (and Obama raising the US minimum mpg) will do to countries like Saudi Arabia (who fund radical Islamic schools), Russia (who has no economy without oil), Venezuela and Nigeria.

For $1 Billion dollars we bought ourselves more national security than giving a billion dollars to the armed forces. I’m not trying to belittle our wonderful men and women in uniform, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

As I type this, the US House has passed $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers.