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"Well, I want to tell you something: Hurricane Obama -- this irene. Whatever this Irene is going to cost us, it pales in comparison that has been the Hurricane that is the Obama administration. "The Obama administration, the Hurricane has cost us far more. And Byron York, while I was gone, great story, fabulous story on the source of all this deficit spending under Obama. The $4 trillion that they're spending. Everybody's focused on entitlements and he correctly points out it's not entitlements that have busted the budget here. Entitlements are known, the spending in entitlements. "What's been added to...

SHANGHAI — China has announced a plan to pay up to nearly $2,800 for old vehicles headed to the scrap heap, in a move aimed at perking up slumping sales in the world's largest auto market. Vehicle owners can get subsidies of between 11,000 yuan-18,000 yuan ($1,700-$2,800) for old farm vehicles, city buses and heavy trucks, said a notice issued today by the finance and commerce ministries. The plan coincides with reports that China's vehicle sales fell by 14 percent in May from the month before after years of mostly double-digit growth. China's auto market surged to become the world's...

If you've tried to buy a used car recently -- a lot of people are finding it hard to get what they want. There is something of a used car shortage going on. News 10NBC found out there are a number of factors why there are fewer used cars out there. One is -- more people are holding onto their new cars longer but also, there are fewer rental cars coming on the market and fewer people are leasing vehicles so therefore -- fewer of those cars are out there. Joan Kamisch is trading her 2000 Chevy Lumina for a...

Tell everyone you know! This government with its "Cash-For-Clunkers" program has deliberately ruined automobile transportation for the poor. Lower middle class and poor individuals nationwide simply can not find reasonably-priced cars to buy in which to transport themselves to perform necessary functions of life, ie: work, school, groceries, healthcare visits, etc. because the cars they can afford are gone. The price of gasoline has skyrocketed and all smaller cars with reasonable gasoline mileage have gone up so high in price the poor can NOT afford to buy them. Some folks are already beginning to ride bicycles to work (really). What...

Victor Dial writes in today’s WSJ, Ou Est Le ‘Cash for Clunkers’? Not surprisingly, the idea of subsidizing new cars came from France. You probably wonder who’s Victor, and what does he have to do with cash-for-clunkers? Most Americans wouldn’t know it, but the Cash for Clunkers model originated in Europe in the mid-1980s. I was in charge of sales and marketing for Peugeot at the time, and the government-incentive idea was co-developed by my company, Renault and the French government. Merci beaucoup for that beaut, Vic! Now, here’s what happened: the automakers wanted a handout, and the labor unions...

Bang! Pow! '60s-Style Batmobile Replicas for Sale by Claudine Zap • September 28, 2010 DC Comics has officially licensed Fiberglass Freaks to re-create, down to the flame throwers (working, natch), the futuristic car that the Caped Crusader drove in the 1960s TV series. For $150,000, you too could keep Gotham City safe. Or at least look really, really cool while sitting in traffic. Each car frame is built around a 1970s Lincoln Town Car. And only eight of these hand-crafted beauties roll off the factory floor each year. Company founder Mark Racop has been perfecting the design pretty much his...

After wasting $3 billion with the Cash for Clunkers program President Obama and his administration decided to take cash from the American people by selling them the government’s old cars. GovSales.gov has been holding auctions where the public can buy the federal clunkers. As of today 249 trucks and semi tractors are available for auctioning, 248 cars and SUVs. You can bid for the Obama clunker on the picture here. Here are more examples of the federal government clunkers for sale: 1969 AM General M540, 1973 AM General M35A2C, 1985 Chevrolet CD30903, 1968 Ford F600. Maybe the President made...

<p>By now, the only defense Democrats can mount of the Obama stimulus programs is that the economy would have been worse without them. There's no way to disprove this counterfactual, but now we have some empirical evidence other than 9.6% unemployment and 1.6% growth.</p>

One of my sons had a car accident recently. The car was totaled but fortunately no one was injured. There was only basic insurance coverage, so we started the new (used) car search. Being male and somewhat into cars, this was a challenge that I savored. The eternal hunt for a good car deal is something that is fun in some ways. It is an opportunity to cast lots against the system, trying to find proper transportation by being a hunter-gatherer of the 21st century. Now, I am first to admit to being a bottom feeder when it comes to...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The nation's top automakers reported disappointing sales Wednesday, resulting in the worst August for industrywide auto sales in 27 years. According to sales tracker Autodata, U.S. new vehicle sales fell just short of 1 million vehicles, a drop of 21% from a year ago, which included Cash for Clunkers. That federal program created a sugar rush of sales by dangling an incentive of up to $4,500 in cash for buyers who traded in older gas guzzlers for more efficient models.

Everyone with a brain knew what would happen. Unfortunately, those controlling Washington, D.C. these days are of questionable intelligence. What am I talking about? Obama's 'brilliant' Cash-for-Clunkers program.

Thousands of people who leased cars last year as part of the Cash for Clunkers program are having second thoughts and are trying to get out of their leases, reports LeaseTrader.com. The program provided up to a $4,500 rebate if a person signed at least a five-year lease for their car. A year later, that money has long been spent and people realize they are stuck with the car for four more years, says John Sternal, LeaseTrader.com spokesman. "I think it's Cash for Clunkers remorse," Sternal says, whose company helps hook up people who want to trade out of their...

Okay, I've seen a lot of whoppers in my time, but the Cash for Clunkers legislation (CFF, colloquial for Car Allowance Rebate System) takes the cake. And today's CPI report reiterates the net welfare-reducing impacts of CFF on the economy. I present my case in three parts, but skip on down to point three if you want to see the gist of it. First, the cars that should have been scrapped were unlikely scrapped; better put: the bottom of the distribution of environmentally sound vehicles are still on the road. Why? The trade-in value for any given vehicle that qualifies...

The Car Allowance Rebate System certainly helped carmakers sell more cars this summer than they would have in this troubled economy. But six months later, there's evidence that some "Cash for Clunkers" buyers have a higher repossession and late payment rate than the average consumer. According to CNW Research, the repo rate among high-risk CARS buyers is more than twice that of the same category of consumers that didn't utilize the program. Of subprime buyers who used the government-funded program, nearly 5 percent have had their newly purchased vehicles repossessed. The same group of buyers who didn't use the program...

January 04, 2010, 0:00 a.m. Will the American People Finally Revolt?Federal indulgence and incompetence are too vast to catalogue. By Deroy Murdock Where is Nelson Mandela when we need him? In an especially memorable moment in Clint Eastwood’s fine new film Invictus, South Africa’s first black president (exquisitely portrayed by Morgan Freeman) inspects his first official paycheck. “This is terrible,� Mandela says. He decides he earns too much money and subsequently donates a third of his salary to charity. Thus was born the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Mandela’s humility and fiscal restraint would be as exotic in the nation’s...

PICTURE GALLERY: Car Show Models These Girls Make A Living Posing In Front Of The World's Hottest Cars [Pics in URL]

A deadline looms for businesses to glean usable parts from hundreds of automobiles. Last summer's Cash for Clunkers program has clogged auto salvage yards with a glut of trade-ins that are too damaged to drive but too good to be sent directly to scrap. The less glamorous side of the auto industry is having trouble digesting the byproducts of the buying frenzy that put nearly 700,000 new automobiles on the nation's roads -- and took the same number off. The future of millions of usable auto parts is in limbo as a critical deadline looms this winter under the federal...

<p>The most common deals under the government's $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program, aimed at putting more fuel-efficient cars on the road, replaced old Ford or Chevrolet pickups with new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage, according to an analysis of new federal data by The Associated Press.</p>

WASHINGTON – Billed as a way for the government to put more fuel-efficient vehicles on highways, the popular $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program mostly involved swaps of old Ford or Chevrolet pickups for new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage, according to an analysis of new federal data by The Associated Press. The single most common swap — which occurred more than 8,200 times — involved Ford F150 pickup owners who took advantage of a government rebate to trade their old trucks for new Ford F150s

Recent disclosure that the so-called “cash for clunkers” government program that paid new car buyers up to $4500 each for the trade-in of qualifying vehicles actually cost taxpayers an average of over $24,000 per trade-in due to government “red tape,” prompted a scathing response on the whitehouse.gov web site. “Quibbling over the cost to taxpayers is both untimely and unseemly,” wrote an anonymous White House staffer. “The important objective is to pump money into the economy. It wouldn’t have mattered if we simply threw currency from the windows of a moving car. In this case, the government employees who processed...

To hear President Obama crow in vindication of his Stimulus Bill, one would think the light at the end of the tunnel is visible on the economic front. Obama has taken credit for the third quarter GDP growth of 3.5% as well he should. However, we need to examine what that growth was based upon and whether it was a bona fide growth of the economy or the counting of stolen booty. The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and residential fixed...

White House fights back on Cash for Clunkers Obama administration goes to battle with Edmunds.com on Cash for Clunkers analysis, saying the program contributed heavily to last quarter's economic expansion. By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer Last Updated: October 29, 2009: 5:51 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration on Thursday lashed out at a prominent critic of its Cash for Clunkers program, arguing that the popular trade-in initiative helped give the auto industry and the economy a much needed boost in the past few months. In a blog post on whitehouse.gov, the administration argued that a report...

Visit the federal government web site for the recently-concluded “Cash for Clunkers” program and you’ll find the program described as “enormously successful”. Contrary to that claim, however, Edmunds.com research revealed yesterday that the program, which enabled a car buyer to pay as much as $4,500 less for a new vehicle, actually cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.

Auto sales analysts at Edmunds.com say the pricey program resulted in relatively few additional car sales. -- A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com. Still, auto sales contributed heavily to the economy's expansion in the third quarter, adding 1.7 percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product growth. Is the economy really getting better? The Cash for Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up...

On August 13 I posted a piece wherein I facetiously asked "Why does Obama hate the poor?" Then I pointed out that the cash for clunkers program was likely to cause the price of used cars to skyrocket in the near future. I also asserted that the reason this will be so is because Obama's clunkers program was set to destroy hundreds of thousands of otherwise perfectly functional cars all of which would have ended up on the used car market were it not for Obama's interventionism. It really is the most simple principle of supply and demand, so simple...

At least one group of needy Americans is getting timely government assistance during this recession – golf cart purchasers: We thought cash for clunkers was the ultimate waste of taxpayer money, but as usual we were too optimistic. Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama’s stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart. The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states...

SO...you took FEDZILLA up on its offer of $4500. dollars to trade in your old "Clunker" (interesting choice of words)? Well, let's see who got the best of that "deal"... If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you got $4500 off for an apparent "savings" of $1000. You could have gotten $3,500 if you had just traded the car in. So you really are $1,000 ahead (depending on your clunker's value) at this point. Not too bad.... However, you WILL have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If...

The verdict is finally in on the “cash for clunkers” program, and I doubt that any rational person will applaud. I know you will find this hard to believe, but, it appears that new car sales weren’t “stimulated” at all, they were just moved from one time period to another.

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- In the first month after the end of the "cash-for-clunkers" program, automakers on Thursday are reporting virtually across-the-board sales declines with Chrysler and General Motors seeing volumes nearly halved, but Ford not hit as hard as expected and even robust gains for Hyundai.

The automotive-information Web site Edmunds.com said it expects seasonally adjusted sales in September will be the worst of 2009, down 3 percent vs. February — "the darkest month of the recession" — and down 30 percent vs. last September "when the bottom was falling out of the economy." Dropping with the sales are the profits of dealers, who this month have had to goose incentives even as they carry hundreds of millions in debt as they wait for the government to make good on its Clunker vouchers. "The best month of the year for car sales is being quickly followed...

A couple in California turned over their 2001 Nissan X-Terra for the Cash for Clunkers program, but a few weeks later they discovered that the dealer decided to put it back up for sale instead of destroying it as per the program's rules. The dealership says it never asked for the government credit and decided instead to treat the X-Terra as a trade-in. They never told that to the customers, however, who thought the X-Terra would be destroyed. The customers told the U.S. Department of Transportation that they participated in the program specifically to get the 17 MPG X-Terra off...

While President Obama delivers speeches praising the alleged success of Cash for Clunkers, a former rebate processor for the federal program is calling it "complete chaos." After the federal "Cash for Clunkers" program ended Aug. 24, the Department of Transportation reported that nearly 700,000 clunkers were taken off the roads and replaced by more fuel-efficient vehicles. Rebate applications worth $2.877 billion were submitted by the 8 p.m. deadline. The Transportation Department hired federal employees and private contract workers to process the rebates vouchers so car dealers would be compensated. Former White House aide Kathleen Willey was hired as an employee...

It has been nearly a month since the car-buying frenzy of the Cash for Clunkers program ended, and many area auto dealers are longing for the good old days of July and August. Like consumers nationwide, Massachusetts residents rushed to take advantage of the federal voucher program, which offered them up to $4,500 on old gas-guzzlers to be put toward the purchase of new, more fuel-efficient vehicles. About $65 million worth of vouchers were handed out statewide during the monthlong program that ended Aug. 24. But once the federal money dried up, so did the sales rally. Now, customers at...

Clay, New York (WSYR-TV) Fewer used cars on the lot are driving up the price for those in the market looking for another car. "Part of the problem why the price is going up because the availability of the cars is a little bit lower," says Tom Loving of Summit Chevrolet. The higher prices are making car shopping a little more difficult for Kara Hooker, who was searching for a used car Friday night at the Great Northern Mall. "I missed out on the Cash for Clunkers deal because my car is a Volkswagen and you don't get anything for...

A vehicle getting 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline. A vehicle getting 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons per year. That equates to saving a bit over 5 million barrels of oil per year. I repeat - per YEAR. 5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's U.S. consumption. And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350...

Here is video from NBC last night where Brian Williams reported that the Obama Administration's "Cash for Clunkers" program was underwhelming in helping Chrysler and General Motors. Of the big three American car makers, only Ford was up in August sales over August 2008, with a 17% gain. Chrysler was down 15%, and General Motors was down 20% - even with the "Cash for Clunkers" incentive. Toyota was up 6%. NOTE: What happens in the coming months with no government boondoggle incentive? . . . .(VIDEO)

MONTGOMERY | The popular Cash for Clunkers program helped new car dealers, but it is dramatically raising the price of relatively inexpensive used cars, hurting the poor, dealers say. The Car Allowance Rebate System, commonly called Cash for Clunkers, took 690,000 operable cars out of the market, which is beginning to reflect effects of the shortage. A smaller supply of used cars over the next six months will affect the auto parts market that lower-income drivers and hobbyists rely on to keep their older cars running. Ronnie Watkins is a Ford dealer in Gadsden. He said he told his car...

WASHINGTON — The Cash for Clunkers buzz is starting to wear off and it seems that some buyers are having serious second thoughts about getting on that government-funded bandwagon, according to a new survey. In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Transportation said that dealers by Tuesday's deadline had submitted a final total of 690,114 Cash for Clunkers deals for $2.88 billion in rebates. The total is just under the revised $3-billion budget for the four-week program. The new survey by CNW Purchase Path, of Bandon, Oregon, finds that of nearly 1,000 Cash for Clunkers participants, 17 percent say they...

Auto dealers are already starting to see consumer interest drop off now that clunkers is over. Watch video: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=117185

Here's the figure: $2.878 billion. That's how much money the government owes car dealers for the "Cash for Clunkers" program. More than $200 million of that is owed to dealers in Illinois and Indiana, so CBS 2's Mai Martinez checked with some of them to see how much money they've collected from Uncle Sam. Now that the popular program has ended, many dealerships are asking the federal government to "show me the money." CAPTURE MY CHICAGO: Send us your pictures of Chicagoland. You could get published in a book. "Out of 142 deals they owe us for, we've gotten paid...

The Obama administration brags that Cash for Clunkers was a success because it revived the suffering auto industry. But who really benefited from this $3 billion program? The majority of cars bought with taxpayer-paid incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 each were foreign cars. Toyota and Honda were the big winners. For years, Americans have been pursuing the goal of self-sufficiency in oil, a natural resource essential to our standard of living. But the effort to get our government to revoke its ban on drilling for oil in American waters off of our shores has been consistently checkmated by the liberals...

Auto makers will release their monthly sales reports Tuesday and they're expected to show the first year-to-year increase since 2007. While the Cash for Clunkers program is getting all the credit, local car dealers are still waiting for their cash. During the month long program, Billion Automotive sold close to a thousand vehicles but has only been reimbursed for 272 of them. Vern Eide sold over 200 cars and has only been paid for 27 of them, and that's fueling lots of concerns in the auto industry. Billion Automotive cashed in during Cash for Clunkers, but owner Dave Billion is...

What’s next? ‘Codgers for Caskets?’ Who says government can’t run business? Most everyone! That’s beside the point. Even Obama chides postal failure to dispatch letters across the United States sans profit. But now, the Obamanistas are in the car biz to the tips of their GM tail fins. Cash for clunkers, also knwn as “Send an Asian Child to College,” is now history. The feds have three big advantages against privately owned business: They don’t have to play by the rules, if the promotion tanks, there’s an endless supply of cash from us the taxpayers, and when that runs out,...

This is hilarious: But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable. "They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," Nelson said. The amusement here is how most (if not all) states compute sales tax (charged when you register the vehicle.) When you buy a new car you pay tax on the difference between the...

In a statement released today by the UAW, union President Ron Gettelfinger said, “It’s unfortunate the company chose to close a U.S. facility after benefiting so greatly from the federal cash-for-clunkers program, which is funded by U.S. taxpayers.”

Some of the drivers that bought new cars through cash for clunkers are learning that it wasn't quite the deal they hoped for. Keloland Television: But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable. "They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," Nelson said. We imagine that MOST people didn't know the rebates were taxable......

YOUR "CASH FOR CLUNKERS" MONEY IS TAXABLE AS REGULAR INCOME.Friends, we have ONE CHANCE to fix this. 2010. If we don't vote every Democrat out of office in 2010, kiss our sweet butts goodbye.

This hilarious piece is written by one of my favorite writers, Gregg Easterbrook. He's also known as Tuesday Morning Quarterback, and he's a sports columnist for ESPN. His football columns often include thoughts on politics. His recent piece on the foolishness of Cash for Clunkers and excessive government spending is brilliant. Ideal Government Program -- Build New Clunkers, Then Immediately Junk Them: Can anyone explain why American taxpayers are being taxed, via the Cash for Clunkers program, to subsidize the destruction of low-mileage cars -- while simultaneously being taxed to support General Motors, which just released a 426-horsepower, 16-mpg Camaro...

Here is video of Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl on with Neil Cavuto today where he said the Government's "Cash for Clunkers" program will result in higher car prices, and will become a "case study in unintended consequences." Anwyl said sales of cars are already dropping dramatically after the artificially created spike last month. He also said prices have already gone up on cars. He says the program actually created an "artificial bubble" and in no way means the economy is improving in reality. . . . . (Watch Video)