Cash Clunking Stimulus
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009CNN offered up an today that discusses some of the vehicles being turned in as well as their replacements.
The story opens with an account of a consumer who divested himself of a 1991 Ford F-150 with 422,000 miles on it and replaced it with a crew-cab Silverado. Okay, maybe it’s just me. Everything qualified under the program’s terms, but an environmentally sound trade? Not so much in my book.
Thankfully the language of the bill requires that the clunkers be in drivable condition and have been insured for the past year, blocking folks from hauling some broken down old hulk in and collecting. And people are turning in a lot of SUV-type rigs, which does my hybrid-loving small car heart good.
But, while the cash for clunker program has a little green wash on it, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t really an effort to just get car sales moving any way possible. If that’s the case, and if Congress comes through with another $2 billion to further fund the option, some of you might reconsider and get in on the goods.
Back during the Depression people complained about so-called “make work” projects under the umbrella of the WPA and PWA, but those programs did get dollars back into the economy. Cash for clunkers is generating car sales, which in turn provides a boost to a recession-battered economy that seems on the brink of turning the right way. That and that alone would make me support more clunker cash.
Leave a Reply