Face it. You love that new car smell.

Before we get into yet another reason why the Cash for Clunkers program is counter-productive, we heard a commercial on the way home from work just now from Father Joe urging people to forego the government program and give him their clunker in exchange for the tax write-off. Get a tax break, give to charity and don’t take on a new car payment that you may not be able to afford even with the rebate. Sounds reasonable to us. The mere fact, though, that this San Diego-based charity felt compelled to pay drive-time bucks on a national talk radio show is circumstantial evidence that Cash for Clunkers is adversely affecting the charity sector, as well.

And right on cue, as we were searching for Father Joe’s Auto Donation site.

Cash for Clunkers launched right before his peak donation season, Father Joe said. He wishes Congress and the White House had considered charities when devising the program.

"To me, the idea would have been donate your car to a charity, get a $4,000 write-off, then go spend it," Father Joe said.

Father Joe obviously has his priorities skewed. To hell with the poor, it is Gaia that must be served.

But how is Gaia being served when:

The article noted that "Newer cars are driven more than older cars. On average people drive their new cars and trucks about 25 percent more than they do their 10-year-old vehicles." So, even if the new car's fuel economy is much better than the older car's fuel economy, that will not matter much if the owner of the new car drives that car much more and according to this article, he or she likely will be driving the new vehicle a lot more than the older one.

Aside from the gathering of empirical evidence, the notion of driving your new car more often and for longer than your clunker stands up to intuition and natural human behavior… especially for men out there whom we feel confident we can speak on behalf.

Part of the reason you bought that new car was, well…. it was to drive it. Outside of city traffic and freeway gridlock, driving is fun. And this CfC program could not have come along at a better time than summer as it flows into fall with its great driving weather throughout most of the country to re-enforce this point. Your self-fulfillment through odometer rollovers: 1. Environment: 0

That road trip up the coast or out to the Grand Canyon that you were putting off because you did not have full faith and confidence in your clunker is back on again. Your wanderlust: 1. Environment: 0

And lord knows, chicks dig new cars so the thought of your game being stepped up by ownership of a new car will not be accompanied by the notion that your hot new ride will be grounded in the driveway very much. It’s all about exposure. Your libido: 1. Environment: 0.

As you can see, a program that gives the shaft to the poor with the added benefit of raping the environment is normally the exclusive domain of the Republicans so it’s comforting to know that bipartisanship is alive and well on Capitol Hill.