Ex-Obama Econ Guru Sez Cash for Clunkers Was Maybe Not Such a Great Idea After All

Former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee offered some Tuesday afternoon quarterbacking on various government efforts to goose the economy on the tube yesterday.

Turns out, when the economic crisis hit, the administration had no idea what was going on, how long it was going to be going on, or how to stop it—just like absolutely everyone else. So they decided to try throwing fistfuls of (borrowed) money in several directions, including paying people to scrap perfectly functional cars. Also to make bad investments in housing.

"Because we didn't know if [economic recovery was] going to be short or long," the Obama administration tried measures to address both scenarios, Goolsbee explained on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"If you look at Cash for Clunkers or the first home buyer tax credit, they were geared to trying to shift [recovery] from 2010 into 2009. Given it's taken this long [to recover], I don't think you would do that short-run stuff," Goolsbee added.

Reason was all over the Cash for Clunkers fiasco.

Via the inexplicable Lord Humungus.

Related on Reason.tv: Uncle Sugar wants your clunk: