I was listening to 1240 Am up here in Michigan this morning and I heard Mark Schauer (D 07) say that this joke for a program may need more money because of demand.

I would say that if I was a Ford dealership I wouldn’t be trying to use this clunkers deal, given what’s essentially happening here is that car dealerships are giving $4,500 interest-free, unguaranteed loans to the federal government… and the determination of whether or not those loans get paid off is more or less going to be at the discretion of mid-level bureaucrats at the NHTSA, just saying.

I think I heard that they might get 250,000 cars as trade in for the “Cash for Clunkers”. This is what happens when you roll at an ill-conceived program to “help” people. Actually Obama thought it would help his GM & Chrysler brands flagging sales.
You know in this program they pour a silicate into the engine and then run it until it seizes up. Now that silicate gets buried in a landfill because they crush the cars. I wonder why the eco-nazis did not get this program stopped?

Now imagine a National Health Care system 100 times as screwed up as this tiny program????

This administration is its own worst enemy.

Face it, the country is in the hands of crazies.
If government jobs or raises were on the line, if job security were a sometimes thing, perhaps there would be improvement. People have been known to respond to both rewards and fear. As it is, just show up, anything else you do is gravy.

I see a screwing in the future of a lot of car dealers. That’s what government does best. That and forgetting that the screwing took place.

on. He supported and voted for this mess. Another 3-4 billion down the drain.

I heard on Beck this morning that the clunkers are being sent to New Mexico, being cut into fist sized pieces, and shipped to CHINA.

on. He supported and voted for this mess. Another 3-4 billion down the drain.

I heard on Beck this morning that the clunkers are being sent to New Mexico, being cut into fist sized pieces, and shipped to CHINA.

the ads in the Austin area hype the $4500 trade-in from the Federal Government while promoting Jeep Cherokee, pick ups and suv’s. Maybe it’s just Texas where few are going to buy an Obamacar.

Today it’s “trade in your old car for a nice new one”.

Tomorrow it’l be “turn in your old car. peroid”. Easy to do - just stop registering pre-1990 cars or those that don’t pass the ever-tightening smog checks.

The main point of this legislation was to prop up Obama’s new car companies, and give a sop to the struggling UAW. If the Democrats thought they could get away with it, they would have made the program exclusionary to car companies that only used UAW labor. It had nothing to do with environmental concerns.

I’d love to see the data when this program is over, and see what cars Americans bought for their trade ins. I’m betting Americans passed over the Obama Motor companies (Chrysler and GM) and instead bought brands like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan etc.

on Saturday, and my dealer seemed pretty pleased about the whole deal. They seemed to be satisfied with how everything was working out, aside from the additional paperwork. I’d say six cars were sold in the few hours I was on the lot, and for a small, rural dealership that ain’t bad.

And in my case, at least, the bill worked as intended. I turned in a GMC that got around 16 mpg and got a Ford with about double that and saved a boatload of money. I’m happy, my dealer’s happy, so for now I’ll reserve any negative judgment on the bill. When we start hearing of people who followed the rules (which seemed fairly straightforward) not being reimbursed, then the fire and brimstone will come.

Until then, gotta love that new car smell…

Also, GM and Chrysler are giving $4500 on top of the Cash for clunkers. There’s the govt subsidy of the brands we as taxpayers own. cute.

who went into a dealership w/ checkbook in hand to buy a newer efficient hybrid vehicle and he couldn’t get it done. No wonder.

Then tell them you have a clunker.

Otherwise they’ll just play w/ your $4500 on the price just like any other trade-in.

I also read about solar panels prices going up because of higher government subsidies. Just like the rapid increase of college tuition rose with all the cheap/free/available money to finance it.

It could be worse. There could be a law *requiring* dealers to accept clunkers even if there is no government money to reimburse them.

WTOP just announced breaking news that the program is being suspended. What happens to all those dealers who took the cars in this program? Just another way to drive politically suspect dealers out of business.

If the idiots in Congress CANNOT run this little itty bitty 1 billion dollar program how in the heck do they think they can run Healthcare which will be 1 trillion dollars. I mean will healthcare reform RUN OUT OF MONEY? and when it does will the government just SHUT IT DOWN!!!

So many commercials running through my mind on this FAILURE again of another government run program!

Whoever has his enemy at his mercy &
does not destroy him is his own enemy

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99P2U9G1&show_article=1

Now, it really is a very funny joke, instead of just a joke.

I came up with the idea for this program last year as a way to avoid auto bailouts and as a more effective way of improving overall fleet fuel efficiency without doing something stupid like raising fuel efficiency standards. Naturally, the government only puts it in place after doing both of the above first, and then mismanages the program on top of it. I still stand by the idea, even if the Democrats are determined to prove that they can’t do anything right.

They ran that program so well, we can hardly wait for them to start runnng the country’s health care system.

that is exactly what they just did
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/31/democrats-house-plans-pass-billion-boost-cash-clunkers-program/

Cash for Clunkers: Victims of Their Own Success?

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/31/cash-for-clunkers-victims-of-their-own-success/

There’s a distinct difference between a successful government program and a good government program. In effect, cash for clunkers is a classic lesson in Economics 101: What Not to Do. It’s sadly reminiscent of Frederic Bastiat’s broken window fallacy, except that instead of breaking windows to “stimulate the economy,” we’re destroying perfectly good cars. Meanwhile, we’re asking consumers to purchase cars they might not be able to afford and incur more debt. While the program is ‘working’ in the sense that people are buying new cars, not only has the government had trouble dispersing the money, the program is full of unintended consequences, including dubious environmental benefits.

I traded in my Suburban last Friday. When I told my mechanic what I did, I thought he would be heartbroken since all the work he did on it probably put his kids thru college, but he actually sounded relieved.

Anyhow - regarding some of the horror stories, I think alot of it is confusion on part of the dealers and the sellers. I talked to alot of dealers when I was looking for a new vehicle - many of them were really not up to speed on the program. One of the reasons I chose the dealer I went with was he was following the program very closely.

When I went to sign all my paperwork I already had copies of my insurance policy and vehicle registration to prove coverage for the year. From talking to my dealer the past couple days, he said that many people have to scramble to get that documentation together.