Tran Harry – The Economy Needs A Fix

So with the Cash for Clunkers program you’re suppose to be able to take this:

And so long as it runs, and gets a crappy 18 mpg or less according to a government produced website and a few other nit picky terms, you are suppose to be able to walk into a dealership that has signed up for the program and convert that into this:

According to the program you can get up to $4,500 that can then be used to purchase a new car.

After reading about how the government’s $1 billion was drying up fast, I thought I would personally look into this myself, and went to a few dealerships where one VW manager out right told me that they don’t work with the cash for clunkers program. The manager told me that they didn’t want to participate because they had no clue when the government would issue the money to the dealership and as a result there was too much liability on their hands for taking the clunkers away from the road.

Another dealership down the street selling Subarus told me that I should probably try one of the Domestic dealerships if I wanted to get involved.

Now I went to an American dealership and they told me the only cars that I can buy after I traded in my clunker of a car are the brand new cars on the lot.

This ultimately led me to the conclusion, who exactly gets help here? I know a good portion of the initial $1 billion has already been dried up and assuming each car receives the entire $4,500 thats a good 250,000 people who have already benefitted from this program. But exactly who are these people?

If I’m already driving around in a clunker that looks like the bumpers and doors are going to fall off, what good is it to have me purchasing a brand new Ford Focus for $16,000 even if you took off the $4,500 that still leaves me with a car payment of $11,500. Am I really able to afford that?

Next everyone who follows my blog knows that my car doesn’t get 18 mpg or less, I already get over 35 mpg on average. This program immediately excludes me and my older vehicle from the equation immediately. Well let’s just say that I’m good to go for a new car at this moment. Why am I punished for being the person who has always followed the environmentally friendly route. Someone who has always been driving around in an older model Cadillac getting 16 mpg can now trade up to a brand new 2009 Ford Escape which according to the www.fueleconomy.gov site gets 23 mpg combined. That 7 mpg gain in difference means that this trade would qualify for the entire $4,500 pot.

The sad news is that newly traded car still doesn’t get close to the type of mileage my old “clunker” gets. Still that doesn’t so much infuriate my as much as the fact that it is still extremely difficult to find any one who will accept the program other than the Domestic dealerships.

And I guess that is what the program is ultimately about in the end isn’t it? If the Domestic dealers can sell more cars, than they can stay in business that much longer to produce next years models. Banks will have some more poor saps taking on loans they couldn’t afford in the first place only because they want to take advantage of the rebates just like the homebuyer’s credits. We all get a slight reduction in atmospheric pollution but if everyone gained a 5 mpg increase from before that doesn’t exactly speak volumes in climate change either.

Once again we have another government program that bums me out.