Remember, these are the same people who want to run our heatlh care system.

The entire membership of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association is pulling out of the "Cash for Clunkers" program because it is being run incompetently by the government.

Dan Strumpf of Breitbart:

"(The government) needs to move the system forward and they need to start paying these dealers," said Mark Schienberg, the group's president. "This is a cash-dependent business."

The program offers up to $4,500 to shoppers who trade in vehicles getting 18 mpg or less for a more fuel-efficient car or truck. Dealers pay the rebates out of pocket, then must wait to be reimbursed by the government. But administrative snags and heavy paperwork have created a backlog of unpaid claims.

Schienberg said the group's dealers have been repaid for only about 2 percent of the clunkers deals they've made so far.

Many dealers have said they are worried they won't get repaid at all, while others have waited so long to get reimbursed they don't have the cash to fund any more rebates, Schienberg said.

"The program is a great program in the sense that it's creating a lot of floor traffic that a lot of dealers haven't seen in a long time," he said.

"But it's in the hands of this enormous bureaucracy and regulatory agency," he added. "If they don't get out of their own way, this program is going to be a huge failure."

The reason dealers are worried about not getting paid is that the rules that govern whether a "clunker" is eligible are not very clear, and dealers may be stuck with having given rebates to cars  that don't qualify. 

The program has been underway for nearly a month and it's pretty obvious the government wasn't ready. And given the headaches with paperwork and slow pay, one wonders if, in the end, the program would have proved to be worth the trouble.