1/2 Percent Bump in GDP Just Like 2,000 People Dying In A Flood

National Public Radio gets grants from the federal government, so keep in mind that your tax dollars pay the salary of Mara Liasson:

Last night, Fox News aired a clip 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.

Ahem.

The government did start a program in Cash for Clunkers, and they DID execute it, you magnificent fool. They executed it so well that traffic at dealers shot through the roofs and 250,000 eligible cars were sold in a week. They executed it so well that Congress will appropriate more money for it. They executed it so well that $5 billion dollars got circulated through the economy with a $1 billion dollar investment. They executed it so well that carbuyers saw a 69% increase in their fuel efficiency.

And, as long as you're comparing it to Katrina, they executed it so well that NOBODY DIED.

If Cash for Clunkers is a mini-Katrina, Social Security is a mini-9/11. Why does Mara Liasson hate Social Security and our brave men and women who died in a terrorist attack? Sadly, that logic is better than what Liasson used in her original statement.

Let NPR know what you think about this. Liasson made the comment on Fox News, but NPR is the bigger pressure point.