Dear America,

C.A.R.S. (Per Glenn Beck today, please don't go into this CARS website! Seriously, unless you want every bit of your privacy to vanish right before your eyes; Glenn can better explain)

WTF.GOV?

Let me get this straight -- good ole Uncle Sam is incentivize-ing the buying of something, by example, the car -- causing John Q. Public to buy into the idea that through the graciousness of our fine government they can purchase a brand new car TODAY without a second glance or concern about tomorrow.

No concern if John Q. Public can afford the new car payment over time in the first place...

No concern if John Q. Public has a job next year or for that matter through the duration of a new 5 year contract...

No concern to the environment of all 250,000 cars destined for the scrap metal factory and landfills...

No concern for getting involved in a marketplace where government, once again, doesn't belong; and I wonder where are the junk yard guard dogs to keep them out?

Doesn't this sound eerily familiar to the housing mortgage bust? The government made it so easy for all of those who couldn't afford it!!! get into a house and subsequently went belly up in their mortgages when the realities set in (and the realities, there were a number). But remember the ads and the incentives; the call to ARMs to get into the market was huge.

So in two years from now, when these people who got themselves irresponsibly into a new car payment figure out they can no longer afford it, or worse, lose a job, or even worse lose their health insurance, what will our government do then?

Will the government force all the rest of us wage earners to help cover the costs of refinancing these loans? Will they just write them off for simply reasons that these people know not what they do? Will they somehow find Wall Street to blame, or even better blame car dealership OWNERS ultimately demonizing their behavior and turning the car lot into a twisted tale of double crossing slimey car salesmen?

When money is tight, normal behavior would tell you to keep driving the old clunker. Normal behavior would have us take personal responsibility of our own budget, even going so far as to scrutinize every detail to find out if in fact it truly is a "good time to buy" as Ford insists.

Yes, I guess I slipped into another chat on self-reliance. A hard lesson to learn, so why not repeat it. Cause and Effect is alive and well in America, and we have to start paying attention to what is true for ourselves. Just because we hear it on TV does not make it true, or righteous, or in any way, shape or form economically responsible or feasible. BUT the point is, the more we depend upon our government whether it be getting into a new home, a new car, or health insurance or food stamps, the less free we really are.

Debt, no matter who's debt it belongs to, is not a symbol of freedom. It makes us a slave, if you will, to that debt; and only if you really, really, really love your job is it worthy of having.

The more we allow for Big Brother to come swooping in, no matter what sector of our lives, the less freedoms of choice we will have. I mean, at the rate our government is going, I'm surprised we weren't told what color of car we had to get in the fine print!

And really, doesn't this situation with this CARS/Cash for Clunkers program just reek of undermining the philosophy of a free market system? For these people who are coming out in droves to take advantage of these so called deals would have to buy a new car eventually ...when the time is right. But now, that free market system is no longer free as it has now been tightly tethered along with many other fallible programs like the cap and trade, stimulus package and all other previously managed government entitlement programs past, present and future!

So if everybody is getting that new car TODAY. When tomorrow comes -- and it will --what's are government, or rather "silent partner" as the case may be, gonna do about it?

My girlfriends and I have a favorite phrase to use when out with the gang and it came time for the check. For those of us on a more frugal spending diet who just ordered an appetizer and beverage we'd jokingly scream "I'm not paying for that!" when it came to sharing the costs of the little princess who ordered a steak. You get my beef.

Every day now. It is happening every day. The government just knocks on the Treasury door and says, "hi, can you make me some more money, I ran out already"; 2 billion dollars more, people please. Like a teenager asking daddy for more. Like a princess ordering a steak. We need to stand up and say "I'm not paying for that!"

Make it a good day, G