Remember that huge cash bailout for the auto industry a little while back? Sure you do. The car makers got a huge chunk of cash and, in return, this week they closed a couple thousand dealerships and put several thousand folks out of work. So, money well spent, I see.

And I was thinking about this, and I think the government was a little short-sighted in their bailout process. I keep hearing that the auto industry is essential to the American economy because of the number of workers they employ (minus the several thousand that are no longer working), plus all the dealerships they support (ditto), and then the domino effect of parts manufacturers, shippers, component makers, etc. And that’s where I think the bailout wasn’t thought through all the way. Instead of just handing the various corporations large wheelbarrows of cash for, essentially, nothing, I think they should have done the obvious thing when giving a car dealer a large sum of money:

They should have bought cars.

Think about it. We gave them, what, twenty-five billion? How many cars would that have bought? I’m no mathematician, but I think it’d be something in the neighborhood of 1.25 million cars. What would the government need with that many cars? Well, give them to law enforcement, for one. I’m sure there’s a lot of police stations out there that could use some new vehicles. What about buying hybrids and giving them to local government agencies? Then they’d have new vehicles and lower operating costs, meaning less of a budget burden. That’s win-win. Plus the car manufacturers would be able to ramp up those new hybrid production lines, bringing the overall cost down and making them more affordable for the rest of us, meaning a possible swing away from using so much foreign oil. Another win-win. The feds could also sell some cars at reduced cost to out-of work families. They get a cheap, new car and the government actually recoups some of their bailout money. Win-win again. Plus there’d be the huge upswing in production. Factories would need to work at capacity to meet the demand for that many new cars. Suppliers would have to create and ship thousands upon thousands of new parts to fill the orders. People would be working, jobs would be saved, money would start moving again, and the economy would see a boost. I can’t help but think that consumer confidence would also be uplifted, which would bolster the stock market. And maybe most importantly, America would actually be making something again.

Yeah, it’s too late now, but wouldn’t that have made sense? To get something for all that money? Hell, if I go to the drive-thru at McDonald’s and discover when I get home that they left out my fries, I’m pretty pissed that I just wasted two bucks for nothing. This is twenty-five billion and nobody got anything.

Well, besides screwed.