Cash-for-Clunkers: Another Tax-and-Spend Fiasco

A bill known as Cash-for-Clunkers is slipping in under the radar of most citizens, but it’s another government giveaway that will cost taxpayers. On the surface it sounds great: $3K to turn in your high-emission vehicle and buy a more fuel-efficient car.

I’ve been researching this bill for an interested organization, but I only write about what interests me on my personal blog. I'm all for fuel-efficient cars, but I do not want to pay for someone else's new Lexus hybrid while all I can afford is what I've got.

Here are some of the most important reasons why taxpayers are suckers – again – if we let Congress spend our money on this.

• The cost of producing each fuel-efficient vehicle offsets the lower-emissions that will be produced. There is no environmental benefit.

• The emissions standards are not high enough for the trade-ins.

• Fuel savings are not great enough to compensate for the new car payment over time.

• The reimbursement is so low that many people are better off selling their older vehicles privately.

• Destroying older vehicles drives up used-car and parts prices. Hobbyists who restore classic cars are very concerned and are among those who do not support this bill.

• Now that gas prices are lower, Americans are returning to their love for bigger cars. A cash or tax incentive is not going to change Americans’ love-affair with their cars.

• American car manufacturers are not in a position to benefit from a spike in sales; their lower-emission vehicles are not yet available in great numbers.

• The people who will benefit are those who already have enough money to trade in their older cars for a new one. Of course, this will be financed by ordinary people who are struggling to stay afloat.

One drawback I have not found many considering is what we are going to do with the toxic batteries from hybrid and electric cars. This makes sense because the bill does not require purchase of a hybrid car; most purchases will be fuel-efficient internal combustion engines.

Batteries are another cost of hybrid car ownership that often is not considered against the price of owning a hybrid or electric car; it run to a few thousand dollars to replace the battery/ies.

In summary, Cash-for-Clunkers not an idea whose time has come; it’s an idea that taxpayers do not need to finance.

If you want sources, I’ve got dozens of them.

The Bleak Look of RecessionFort Lauderdale, Florida, 2009

This cement wasteland was a bustling new and used car dealership near the heart of Fort Lauderdale. Cars whisk past on busy Sunrise Boulevard, heading toward the upscale Galleria Mall, just a few blocks away. Strip malls and businesses line this six-lane highway, some starving more quickly than others. These photos depict a panorama. Below, I am looking directly east, toward the Galleria Mall and ocean.


This view also faces east. The vast showrooms, guarded now by chain-link fencing, are a bleak memorial to American's economic distress.


The photo below faces north, directly in front of where I was standing at one-time entrance to the facility.



Facing west, the cement graveyard of the auto industry stretches many blocks in both directions.


This pile of rubble was a decorative island for plantings, on the fancy cobblestone drive into the auto dealership.


It hurts the heart to see the decay, the far-stretching emptiness of an economic boneyard such as this.