Posted on 01/05/2013 11:14:51 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Whoops—'Cash for Clunkers' Actually Hurt the Environment Takepart.com – Thu, Jan 3, 2013
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Back in 2009, President Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program was supposed to be a boon for the environment and the economy. During a limited time, consumers could trade in an old gas-guzzling used car for up to $4,500 cash back towards the purchase of a fuel-efficient new car. It seemed like a win for everyone: the environment, the gasping auto industry and cash-strapped consumers.
Though almost a million people poured into car dealerships eager to exchange their old jalopies for something shiny and new, recent reports indicate the entire program may have actually hurt the environment far more than it helped.
According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The program's first mistake seems to have been its focus on car shredding, instead of car recycling. With 690,000 vehicles traded in, that's a pretty big mistake.
According to the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), automobiles are almost completely recyclable, down to their engine oil and brake fluid. But many of the “Cash for Clunkers” cars were never sent to recycling facilities. The agency reports that the cars’ engines were instead destroyed by federal mandate, in order to prevent dealers from illicitly reselling the vehicles later.
The remaining parts of each car could then be put up for auction, but program guidelines also required that after 180 days, no matter how much of the car was left, the parts woud be sent to a junkyard and shredded.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I think we all knew this was a bad idea from the start
There was nothing good about the program except to the very few who figured out a way to make money on it. A “hugh” waste of our money.
The taxpayers spent about $5 billion. The majority of vehicles sold were from riceburner manufacturers. And now we find out that it harmed the environment.
Yes, another great government program.
My buddy came out smelling like a rose with this - he traded in a perfectly good, well maintained American manufactured SUV for a new foreign manufactured SUV with slightly better gas mileage. He is financially VERY well off, conservative, and was happy to rip off the Gummn’t for this Boonedoggle. (Can I say Boonedoggle on FR?)
Don’t forget the loss of opportunity for poor people and kids trying to buy their first beater.
It was a disgusting waste.
This is like the joke/theory that proposes that it’s a great idea to break all the windows to give window installers more work.
Whoops — the election of Barack Obama actually hurt the country.
Did ya ever notice that the only person helped by Obama schemes is Obama?
I understand the program was a boondoggle but how was it bad for the environment. I know that the vehicle I got rid of vs the new vehicle I got had to be a win win.
“Did ya ever notice that the only person helped by Obama schemes is Obama?”
Are you suggesting that Obama is a self-interested, narcissistic politician interested only in his own political fortunes?
Cash for clunkers was not a waste at all...
at least in the sense that the leftist imagination is the limit for all kinds of programs that have in the past, are doing now, and will in the future, that shred tax dollars, promote deficits, promote govt borrowing, promote money printing, create more problems for future programs to “fix”, and, in general, just all-around growth of government, diminishment of liberty, augmentation of tyranny.
It was never about the environment, it was about minimizing the potential number of cars available without a brain box.
Yup. We exploited it. Traded in an old 1980 Dodge Van and got our son a new car. Yay!!!!! But we knew at the time that it was a bad idea for just about every reason except we got a good deal.
Talk about ironic: some folks just cannot quite think.
The only purpose of Cash-for-Clunkheads was to get as many quality used vehicles off the market as possible so that the peasants would be forced to purchase new vehicles from the big-government/big-corporate criminal complex, or give up on personal vehicles and put themselves at the mercy of Eric Holder’s gangsters on “public transportation.”
Even worse, heaven forbid that someone who can't afford to trade in their old clunker for a far more expensive new car should have access to inexpensive replacement parts when that old clunker inevitably breaks down.
Typical feelgood liberal nonsense.
“People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.” (Bob Dylan)
That’s OK. If my 92 Lumina had qualified, I’d be driving an Altima today.
A bad idea from the start—Only company who prospered was Ford and they were not a part of it. Another give away—we can not keep going this way—what happens when China stops buying out bad paper? What happens if inflation hits like the Weimar Republic. Do we have an American Hitler waiting in the wings to fix things? All we can hope for is a Mussolini or Franco rather than a nut case Hitler.
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