The villages—the huge Florida retirement community whose commercials are virtually impossible to avoid on cable TV—made headlines a few years ago when a local gynecologist revealed that residents were suffering an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. (She blamed ignorance, opportunity and Viagra.) It made headlines again recently, when Villages Golf Cart Man, a local dealership, announced a program intended to exploit a federal tax credit for electric cars. Here's how they say it works: You buy a street-legal golf cart for $8,000; claim a $5,300 tax credit for buying an environmentally friendly vehicle; lease the cart back to Golf Cart Man for $100 a month; retake possession, or sell the cart to Golf Cart Man for $2,000, after 27 months.

"This means," the company's website says, "you own a free Golf Cart or made $2,000 cash doing absolutely nothing!!!" Tony Colangelo Sr., who owns the dealership, told me that he had withdrawn money from his IRA to buy one for himself. He said that a golf cart, to qualify, has to have seat belts, side mirrors, brake lights and a few other features, but the requirements aren't onerous. "Any golfer who doesn’t take advantage of this is a fool," Colangelo told me.

Actually, according to the Internal Revenue Service, any golfer who takes advantage of Colangelo's offer is a bigger fool, because, it says, any vehicle that's manufactured or used as a golf cart, no matter how many seat belts and side mirrors it has, is ineligible for the credit. (In addition, the credit—which the Wall Street Journal sneered at recently as an example of "tax policy in the age of Obama"—was implemented by the Bush Administration.) Nevertheless, the idea of throwing taxpayer money at golfers is deeply appealing. How about:

Stimulus payments for oncourse bladder relief. Every whiz behind a tree saves a flush.

Tax deductions for golf-club dues. Why not? If you weren't playing golf, you’d be doing something worse.

Federal rebates for golf lessons. Players with good swings lose fewer golf balls than players with bad swings, and golf balls are made from fossil fuels.

Take that, OPEC!