Cash For Clunkers - Bad Idea

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by TexasNick

Do you think, Chaka, that perhaps more people willa ctually be on the road DRIVING cars they otherwise woud've never have driven? Joe Blow down the street has 4 cars, and has a clunker. he sells the clunker he never drives and then now he has a brand new car. That's 5 cars on the street now. More traffic, more exhaust and more clunkers for the future.

I dunno, might be more harm than good.

One person can only drive one car at a time, so no, I don't see it as having MORE cars on the road. Joe will probably be driving the new, more fuel efficient car and leave the other 5 at home, unless he has some way of driving all 5 at once.

But I don't know too many people who have 5 cars at home all for themselves.

I do wish the standards had been higher - like 30mpg rather than "10 mpg over the previous" (could be wrong on that, I didn't pay too close attention).

I wish people would CHOOSE to do things on their own, like be more fuel efficient, conserve water, conserve energy, consume less resources, etc. But most Americans need a push. Ideally the $$ would have gone into improving infrastructure to improve public transport and incentives to use public transport, which would reduce the environmental costs of creating cars and having any cars on the road, but that's not going to happen......and it wouldn't help the dealers or the manufacturers. Unless of course we manage to turn swords (consumption/car manufacturing) into ploughshares (public transport jobs)

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by wc2005

Wake up America!

I actually agree with you. I think that program is bad.

What I don't like is when people are blinded by political ideologies and only complain when "the other side" spends money.

Again,
I agree with you. But I really doubt that you called the "$8000 tax credit" wasteful spending. (I did, even though I took the money )

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by Chaka

I wish people would CHOOSE to do things on their own, like be more fuel efficient, conserve water, conserve energy, consume less resources, etc.

What a lot of people don't realize is that what's profitable is not always what's best for the country.

I bet museums are the less profitable things that you can find in the World,
could be called "wasteful spending" because is not profitable.
Is it good for a society to have museums? Yes.

[sinsativ]

Don't worry, they have already put a halt on the CARS program. Its already over budget! Done spent 1 billion $$.

[Bo]

Can't discuss national politics in a local forum, folks. Feel free to jump into one of the threads in the Politics and Other Controversies forum discussing this issue. This thread is closed.