They allocated another 2 billion — so 750,000 affordable cars are going to be destroyed. If you don’t want to buy a new car, used cars just got more expensive. If you are a low wage worker or need an inexpensive car for a teen or as your second vehicle — this hurts you.
New car buyers(like us) with no clunker trade in need to step back from the market. We stopped our purchase and will wait til they run out of money for this program. No sense competiting with buyers with $4000 of the govt’s money to throw away. They won’t be getting the best deals.
Additionally this is a tax on the poor..higher prices for used beaters.
There are better ways to run this type of program, but I’m sure that no one in congress took a serious look at other countries.
I'm fairly certain that this is part of a well thought out scheme. Too many things are being blamed as "unforeseen" or "unintended consequences." What if some of these consequences HAVE been foreseen and intended, and certain actors have been playing this like a game of chess, looking 3 or 4 moves ahead.
They purposely exclude the oldest vehicles from the program, knowing that the vehicles they're destroying would probably have been the next step up vehicles for those at the low end of the income spectrum. This makes it less and less likely that the poor will be able to have their own vehicles in the future. It also (as you stated) will drive the cost of used cars up, and make maintenance more difficult and expensive for those who have cars in that age range.
I believe that this is a concerted effort by "environmentalists" to try to reduce urban sprawl - without cars, people will be forced to move into heavily urbanized cities. And without the ability to travel at will, they (the authoritarians who have taken up the mantle of "environmentalists") will finally have complete control over the majority of the city dwellers.
One of the things that has really set American people apart from the rest of the world is that we've had a level of personal freedom that is really unknown anywhere else... We've been able to just pick up and move somewhere else, jumping in the car and taking a ride. Have you seen what happens to a senior citizen when it becomes obvious that they're no longer capable of driving safely, and they have to stop driving? They go into a deep depression. Even worse is if you have to take their keys away from them, because they refuse to give them up on their own, but you know they're a danger to themselves and others on the roads (we just had to do that with an 85 year old aunt - she was in a minor accident and got a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road on the same day!). Having your own vehicle brings one a level of independence and freedom that we haven't given much thought to. And the people in many other countries have emulated us in this respect. But I don't believe that any other country has a "car culture" that's so heavily integrated into their national psyche. And those who wish to control us know that the first step on total domination of the population is to take away our cars, and force us to live where they want, in order to use "public transportation."
Mark
New cars just got more expensive too if, like me, you don’t own a clunker but want to buy a new car. And the geniuses that brought you this bill and much of the mortgage mess now want to increase their regulation of the banking and healthcare industries. And according to John Conyers they are not even reading the bills on which they are voting. Why does anybody trust Congress to display competence in any field of endeavor?
The Senate won’t get around to this crisis until next week. Contact your Sens to kill this program.
Damn shame. But wait. The fools that think they are making a real deal now have a car payment for something that is a headache. Clunker was probably paid for and probably had more miles. Dealers are upset that now they have a clunker that they cannot salvage parts. Same as goes health care. Maybe they will allow salvaging parts of the old that are let to die with a pill instead of life saving care.
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