SPEAKING OF OBAMA, LET’S REVISIT THE WAR ON THE WORKING POOR THAT WAS CASH FOR CLUNKERS:  For anyone curious about what it actually looked like to kill a generation of functioning cars, here’s an actual video from 2009 and brief explanation: The dealer first replaces the oil with sodium silicate solution. It’s a clear-ish liquid that crystallizes under extreme heat. As the engine warms up the solution begins to form small abrasive crystals in the oil system that shred the bearing and score the cylinder walls. Within seconds of starting the car you can see smoke billowing from the exhaust, this is the crystals scratching the cylinder walls and leaving small grooves for oil and solution to leak past into the combustion chamber and ignite/evaporate, producing the white smoke.

At the time, both my husband and I drove cars that were considerably older than the supposed “clunkers” so they didn’t qualify (not that we’d do that. We buy them used, take care of them, and drive them till their natural death.) This orgy of destruction made it hard for our kids to afford their first cars and made life difficult for the young and poor (which are often the same.) For … no reason. Except vague “green” feels and a president’s hatred of everyone not rich.