Fox Guest Compares 'Cash for Clunkers' Program to Katrina

Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress at 8:46 AM on August 5, 2009.

Last night, Fox News a clip aired of a woman at a Philadelphia town hall meeting over the weekend berating Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) about health care reform. “What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. … And you want us to believe that a government that can’t even run a Cash for Clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy,” the woman complained. “I think that there is anger out there, real anger,” said NPR’s Mara Liasson, responding to the clip. She then called the woman’s concern “legitimate” and compared the Cash for Clunkers program to Hurricane Katrina:

LIASSON: I thought that woman actually asked a pretty legitimate question — especially Cash for Clunkers is like a mini- Katrina here. I mean it’s not good to start a program and not be able to execute it.

Watch it:

Nearly 2,000 people died and thousands more were injured or displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina and the Bush administration’s incompetent response. However, “Cash for Clunkers” — the government program giving people a $4,500 voucher to trade in an old vehicle for a newer, more fuel efficient one — has been so successful that Congress is considering appropriating more money for it to continue.

Tagged as: fox, katrina, Cash for Clunkers

Benjamin J. Armbruster is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.