The Conservative View: Road to the Poor House

The following is a weekly column written by Russell Turner, a Republican county commissioner from Adair County.

The Conservative View
by Russell Turner

Road To The Poor House

Being from Oklahoma I have a strong admiration of one of our most famous philosophers, Will Rogers. During his life he also experienced an economic upheaval early in the 20^th century. We Americans would do well to read some of the observations of the people that lived through the great depression. While technology has increased, human emotions and drives remain the same as they did all of those years ago. I once heard a quote by Will Rogers that went something like this, ” Americans are the only group of people in the world that ever went to the poor house in a new automobile”.

Over the past week there has been a feeding frenzy over the CASH FOR CLUNKERS promotion for buying a new car. Maybe I am wrong, but I feel that the reason our country is in the financial trouble it is in today is because we Americans have a bad habit of spending more than we can afford. Many people have the goal of having a new car, while that is ok we need to remember an auto is just a tool to get us to work and do the errands we have to do. I was raised not to waste things like food, money, equipment etc. Whenever I see someone pouring a liquid into a perfectly good auto and destroying an engine, it seems like such a waste to me. Some of these so-called clunkers may not get as good gas mileage as some of the newer cars, but they could serve the needs of many people who cannot afford to buy a new car. We Americans far too often are ready to fall for a deal that is too good to pass up. This whole scheme is supposed to help pull the American auto industry out of a slump, but from the numbers I have seen the majority of the new cars being bought are foreign imports.

Instead of getting more American manufactured autos on the road we will be having less. The cash for clunkers promotion will only give a short term boost, the only true solution is for government to get out of the way and allow American ingenuity and innovation to solve the problem and build the cars that the American public want instead of what some government bureaucrat thinks they need. I guess until then we will be on the road to the poor house.

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