'Cash for clunkers' too expensive?
A center point in the debate for the "cash for clunkers" program has been the $1 billion price tag. Beyond the hotly-contested cost, the bill wouldn't just give cash to anyone with a junker. Steve Henn reports.
More on Auto Industry, Fed. Budget/Govt. Spending
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: A $106 billion appropriation funding operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is headed to President Barack Obama for his signature today. The package overwhelmingly passed the Senate yesterday, and includes money for foreign aid, the flu and the "cash for clunkers" program. That's Uncle Sam's way to get people into more fuel-efficient cars. The debate, however, has been anything but a smooth ride. Here's Marketplace's Steve Henn.
Steve Henn: The bill will offer new car buyers up to $4,500 cash back from the federal government if they trade in an old car or truck that gets lousy mileage. The bigger the difference in fuel economy between the new car and the trade-in, the bigger the federal subsidy.
But what's the bill for this bill?
Judd Gregg: A billion dollars!
That caused Republican Senator Judd Gregg to sputter.
Gregg: By the way, in New Hampshire a billion dollars would pretty much run our state government for a considerable period of time. A billion dollers is a lot of money!
But Michigan's Senator, Democrat Debbie Stabenow, argued cash for clunkers is key to getting Detroit motor running again.
Debbie Stabenow: This is an emergency for families and small businesses for an industry that has been the backbone of our economy for a generation.
Car dealers are excited, too, but the bill doesn't allow anyone to tow in a junker that's been up on blocks to collect a check. To qualify for the federal rebate, your trade-in has to have been on the road and insured for the past year.
In Washington, I'm Steve Henn for Marketplace.
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From Hemet, CA, 06/26/2009
The US car companies, following the dictates of the US and UK big-oil horizontal and vertical trusts (Riverside Press-Enterprise, Business Section, 1998), worked with the @ 125 world's largest multinational corporations, summoned to a Sacramento convention, to "...Kill the Electric Car." So these anti-free-enterprise corporations deserve no government help at all. Their CEOs should be in jail for illegal restraint of trade, in my opinion.
Instead, old clunkers, as described in the referenced bill should be bought for the blue-book trade-in value, and old vehicles as those "sitting upon blocks," also mentioned, should be towed away by the government and converted to electric cars and trucks. This would help both clean the air and be a more perfect justice, perhaps in leiu of jailing the culprits in the "kill the electric car" conspiracy. The government could then sell back the cars to, first choice, the original owners, then the public at-large through the local electric utilities, or particular vehicles brands' dealerships, for example.
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