WASHINGTON.  The highly-popular "cash-for-clunkers" program under which owners of gas-guzzling cars receive rebates from the federal government will be expanded to 8-track tapes and other crappy consumer goods, according to Ray LaHood, Transportation Secretary.

LaHood:  “I had no idea Lionel Richie was in The Commodores before he went solo.”

“We have these gigantic presses over at the U.S. Mint sitting idle on Sundays, and guys want time-and-a-half for overtime," LaHood said as he picked through a selection of the cassettes, an obsolete audio format, found in the returned "clunkers".  "We might as well print money and buy stuff to stimulate the economy." 

Cat Stevens 8-track tape:  Soft rock, or funding terrorism?

The cash-for-clunkers program has been derided as wasteful by Republicans, but Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended the expenditures as a means of preserving American history.   “We are filling holes in the Smithsonian's music collection--’80’s R&B, Heavy Metal, and Soft Rock, such as Bread, not to be confused with the staple food made by cooking a dough of flour and water," Geithner said.  "Also Former Soft-Rockers Who Have Converted to Islam such as Cat Stevens.”

Geithner:  "People tell me I look like one of the guys in Bread, but they can't remember which one."

In addition to 8-track tapes, the administration will propose that funds be used to repurchase car air fresheners even though they have a useful life shorter than most American cars.  "People use those little pine trees for Christmas ornaments," noted LaHood, "or you can throw them in your wife's underwear drawer as a sachet."

Car air freshener, and organza sachet

Eight-track tapes were a magnetic sound recording technology popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s.  They were more convenient than the original reel-to-reel format, which would often spray oxide-coated recording tape all over the front seat of your car just as things started to get hot and heavy with Sharon Bribiesca. 

Totally bitchin' cool 8-track carrying case

Owners of 8-tracks can receive rebates of up to $3,500 for tapes of Deep Purple and up to $4,500 for Barry Manilow.  "They have to be in good condition," says program director Earl "Buddy" Bucholz of the Treasury Department's Swap Meet and Tag Sale Division.  "By that I mean unplayable."