Cash for Clunkers

H.E.D said:
Now why would you bring illegal aliens into this.Honestly They are hard working people and the majority never get their taxes back. That was just uncalled for.
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My in laws came over illegally, but gained citizenship.....Is that too much to ask for, or is that totally out of line..........

When you live in a state where illegals are now the MAJORITY, and out of that MAJORITY, the MAJORITY are undocumented, or collecting medical benefits THAT I PAY FOR WITH MY TAXES, I have an issue with it...........

I never said they didnt work hard, by far the hardest working labor class under less then ideal conditions, but become a citizen for cryin out loud, and be PROUD to be an American by citizenship. :usa
 
Well since this would be off topic I will leave it at that. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when i read this
slob who came here illegally
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it's just wrong. Carry on...
 
Accumulater, I agree 100%. My money is MY money! The goverment giving my money to other people drives me insane. I could go on for 5 pages about this nonsense but I'll spare all the people. And for those that have been brainwashed by the media save your breath... I've already heard what your going to say 1000 times before
 
If you look at the entire 2008 federal spending ($3 Trillion):



1. Defense: $613 Billion (21%)

2. Social Security: $612 Billion (21%)

3. Medicare/Medicaid: $682 Billion (23%)

4. Mandatory expenses: $303 Billion (10%) = other entitlement stuff

5. Interest on the debt $249 Billion (8%)

6. Discretionary spending - where everything else that runs the government including clunkers program - $520 Billion - 17%



The big picture view is if you got rid of many govt dept and no extra pork spending, we still still have budget issues. The clunker program increased spending maybe 0.5% of the entire discretionary budget or 0.0008% of the entire spend. Not a bank breaker -- it is already broke so it would be a moral victory to kill it but a hollow one (just stuff to feed the loyal following).



Rather spend the money on funding Iraq another month (was $17 Billion a month at its peak)?
 
Bunky said:
Rather spend the money on funding Iraq another month (was $17 Billion a month at its peak)?
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It's not a question about 'rather spend...', it's about spending the money in the first place.



The last eight months have made me want to run for office. Seriously.
 
Bunky said:
Rather spend the money on funding Iraq another month (was $17 Billion a month at its peak)?
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Thank you. All the noise about this health care initiative costing so much...it will cost less than the Iraq war. Oh, and where is it we are killing all those Al Queda and Taliban? Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq.
 
In reference to the "Cash for Clunkers" program, I think in essence it is a good idea. In fact, instead of the Federal Government "bailing" out 2 of the Big 3 only for them to declare bankruptcy anyway,, this would have been a better first approach.



Two problems come to mind.

First, this is an indirect way for the Federal Government to influence your car buying decisions. Rather than force you buy a specific vehicle, they "encourage" the behavior buy implementing the "C.A.R.S" allowance.



Second, and this just my experience. I have a 2001 Mitsubishi commuter car. While, is has been long paid for and the "C.A.R.S." allowance seems appealing, my vehicle gets great mileage(32-35mpg), is dead reliable, and it seems to be a waste of resources to destroy a perfectly good. engine. ( I'd rather the vehicle be used for other purposes).



In closing, this program has obviously sparked a buying frenzy (albeit short-lived) and the inherent problems with over manufacturing vehicles is still prevalent. (Chrysler still has loads of new SUV's parked in storage lots and other car companies are storing unsold vehicles ). The fact remains that for many people, their cars are lasting longer ( and they in turn are keeping them longer) and the North American market is stalled at 10 million a year.
 
longdx said:
Second, and this just my experience. I have a 2001 Mitsubishi commuter car. While, is has been long paid for and the "C.A.R.S." allowance seems appealing, my vehicle gets great mileage(32-35mpg), is dead reliable, and it seems to be a waste of resources to destroy a perfectly good. engine. ( I'd rather the vehicle be used for other purposes).
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What are you talking about? Your car is in no way eligible for the program. Only cars which have a combined mileage of less than 18 MPG are eligible...hence the "clunkers" part of the name of the program...
 
Setec Astronomy said:
What are you talking about? Your car is in no way eligible for the program. Only cars which have a combined mileage of less than 18 MPG are eligible...hence the "clunkers" part of the name of the program...
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Which, like I said, is a complete misnomer.
 
If you guys are going to start picking apart the federal budget, I think you are going to find a lot more to complain about as far as where your tax dollars are going than this. If you go back to Bunky's numbers, we are paying $249 billion in interest on the debt...now THAT's something to complain about, and Obama, the Dems, or the libs didn't build up that debt, Reagan and W. are mostly responsible (and of course the recent stimulus etc. has added to it). Whether you agree with the wars we are in or not, it's apparently the first time in the history of the US that we went to war and didn't raise taxes to pay for it--instead we lowered them.
 
CocheseUGA said:
If the only way to defend it is to point out other bad decisions, I'm afraid I'm done.
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You know, a famous candidate once said something like "it's time to serve a cause greater than our own self interest". I think this is something that's in the public interest. If you're going to throw money at problems, at least this gets some vehicles off the road that get crappy mileage and pollute more than a new vehicle.



Do you have some suggestions of your own as far as economic stimulus, reduction of dependence on foreign oil, and air quality?
 
Setec Astronomy said:
You know, a famous candidate once said something like "it's time to serve a cause greater than our own self interest". I think this is something that's in the public interest. If you're going to throw money at problems, at least this gets some vehicles off the road that get crappy mileage and pollute more than a new vehicle.



Do you have some suggestions of your own as far as economic stimulus, reduction of dependence on foreign oil, and air quality?
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I've already posted my thoughts on how the CARS bill should have been done. It focused way too much on trying to get a certain group of vehicles off the road. These vehicles aren't bad vehicles. Some could have gone to needy individuals that could use cars to get their kids to school, or further their efforts to find jobs. Instead, there are a ton of vehicles that are going to be effectively recycled due to the shortsightedness of those idiots in Washington. Once again, they are sacrificing long-term gains in favor of short-term ones.



At the same time, they are again killing the used car market by shunting people to new cars where they would probably be buying used. You may think this will help Detroit, but it will be temporary at best. They'll see the difference in lack of fleet sales to rental companies and otherwise, because these people don't have a market to offload their latest rentals. Which leads to higher rental prices for higher mileage vehicles - further reducing their eventual resale value.



And crappy mileage and pollute more? That's an extremely subjective statement. I know of a handful of cars (personally) that get better gas mileage but put out worse emissions than the eligible vehicles. The idea that this is going to significantly impact the environment is insane. And you can't address all those issues in one fell swoop.



There's absolutely no vision to it.
 
I'd never get elected.



Not that the general populace wouldn't appreciate my ideas, but I'd get effectively shunted by the people in power. Term limits, Congressional pay decreases, putting power back in the hands of the people, advocation of a legitimate third party...all things that will be sure to shift the vast war stocks of the political war machines against me.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
I like the way Accumulator starts this poop storm and then doesn't say a word after! :p
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Heh heh, yeah...I was feeling like some kid who let a mouse loose in the chapel :chuckle:



A whole lot of the stuff that's been posted on this thread is simply the kind of...[stuff] I don't debate, let alone over the internet.



You regulars know my views by now: laissez faire capitalism all the way, minimal govt. intervention in the private sector, a firm reliance on personal responsibility, and a sentimental attachment to all kinds of (often unpopular) vehicles add up to my strong opposition to this program.



And as I said, I put my money where my mouth is by buying that '93 Audi V8 before it got clunkered. Now where am I gonna park it :confused: ....gotta sell my M3 post haste, or maybe the RX-7.
 
Accumulator, although I empathize with you, I have to believe that most of the "clunkers" bought in this program are POS's, even if the rules allow otherwise. And it's really a stretch to start blaming the gov't for the general public mistreating cars that you might want to, er...accumulate. CARS or not, people are going to neglect, tastelessly modify, and wreck cool cars. It's not like the government has outlawed those cars or is purposely collecting them all. If gas had stayed over $4/gal or gone higher, how many "clunkers" would have been dealt the same fate because their owners traded them in for nothing on something that got better mileage, and the dealers coudn't sell them?



We really sound like a bunch of spoiled children, of our parents who lived through the depression and fought in WWII. I can imagine the hue and cry today about war rationing, and the gov't wanting us to invest in war bonds instead of flat-panel TV's. Or worse "I can't *believe* the gov't forced the GM plant into making airplanes instead of cars! Now what am I going to do when my lease is up!"
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Accumulator, although I empathize with you, I have to believe that most of the "clunkers" bought in this program are POS's, even if the rules allow otherwise...
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I too figured people would be trading in utter POS's and getting $3500-4500 for stuff that was worth pennies, but that's absolutely *NOT* the case in my area. Some very nice vehicles (well, IMO) are being trashed. A ~'94 Fleetwood was the example that originally got my dander up and I simply shake my head at what people are consigning to that fate.



Other side of the coin: if a clunker is *NOT* worth the bounty, then I don't want the govt. overpaying for it using my tax dollars.



My bottom line-it's govt. interference in the marketplace, using my money for one more thing I wouldn't voluntarily use it for myself. One of many to be sure...



And it's really a stretch to start blaming the gov't for the general public mistreating cars that you might want to, er...accumulate. CARS or not, people are going to neglect, tastelessly modify, and wreck cool cars. It's not like the government has outlawed those cars or is purposely collecting them all.
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Eh..I didn't mean to imply quite what you read into it. But people wouldn't be pouring silica-mix into their engines and then relegating those cars to special dispositions otherwise. The local U-pull-it guys are flummoxed.. "what're we supposed to do with these things, given the special regs on their disposal?". There are also concerns about the health issues related to the clunkered vehicles too (justified or not, I can't say), based on how they're typically trashing the engines.



The regs regarding the disposal of these vehicles hasn't received much attention. I haven't studied them in detail but there have sure been a lot of complaints from the local, uhm..[recycling] yards. No, they *cannot* just cannibalize them for usable parts like any other thrown-away car.



If gas had stayed over $4/gal or gone higher, how many "clunkers" would have been dealt the same fate because their owners traded them in for nothing on something that got better mileage, and the dealers coudn't sell them?
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How many? As many as the unmanipulated market would've called for. And in my area there hasn't been a problem with any low-MPG used car glut; people buy the trade-ins. Right now it's our local used-car guys who are hurting because everybody's buying new (I was just reading about it in today's paper).



Wouldn't be quite the same fate anyhow (back to those special disposal regs); otherwise junked cars would've been able to keep contributing parts in the normal way.



I can't help but wonder how this would be playing out if people had to pay *cash* for the new cars in question. IMO even $4 (cash) gas is cheap compared to the cost of a new car that's being financed. And if people think gas is expensive in the USA they'd better not do much driving overseas.



We really sound like a bunch of spoiled children, of our parents who lived through the depression and fought in WWII...
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Oh, get me going on today's whining :o And yeah, I, uhm...well, I'll put it positively by saying that I sure esteem the Greatest Generation.
 
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