"cash for clunkers" around Atlanta (appointed, sales)

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by neil0311

The real question here....sorry to get political...is what the hell is the federal government doing paying out borrowed money so priviate individuals can buy cars?

Copying the Europeans, apparently. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/bu...01refunds.html Now that the US is having one of these programs, the Canadian government is said to be considering the idea too.

The federal government paying out money for this is perhaps not so different from them paying out money to prop up private enterprises in the financial sector, or giving a tax break on mortgage interest so private individuals can buy houses.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

The federal government paying out money for this is perhaps not so different from them paying out money to prop up private enterprises in the financial sector, or giving a tax break on mortgage interest so private individuals can buy houses.

A tax break is a different thing from a direct cash subsidy, and I don't disagree with you on the financials in principle, although we'd have to be prepared for the fallout which would probably cost us much more in the long run via FDIC. Many of them were federally insured, so there is a difference.

There is no worthy governmental purpose in subsidizing individual private purchases of autos, except that the government now owns a chunk of the auto industry and needs to drive their success.

/political rant off.....back to Atlanta

[Saintmarks]

Originally Posted by neil0311

A tax break is a different thing from a direct cash subsidy, and I don't disagree with you on the financials in principle, although we'd have to be prepared for the fallout which would probably cost us much more in the long run via FDIC. Many of them were federally insured, so there is a difference.

There is no worthy governmental purpose in subsidizing individual private purchases of autos, except that the government now owns a chunk of the auto industry and needs to drive their success.

/political rant off.....back to Atlanta

I agree wholeheartedly even tho it is intended to help my line of business.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by neil0311

A tax break is a different thing from a direct cash subsidy, and I don't disagree with you on the financials in principle, although we'd have to be prepared for the fallout which would probably cost us much more in the long run via FDIC. Many of them were federally insured, so there is a difference.

There is no worthy governmental purpose in subsidizing individual private purchases of autos, except that the government now owns a chunk of the auto industry and needs to drive their success.

/political rant off.....back to Atlanta

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

I agree wholeheartedly even tho it is intended to help my line of business.

Even though I am very happy to be personally benefiting from this program (I hope), I don't see this as a particularly virtuous or valuable government initiative. If Congress had asked my opinion before-hand, I'd have preferred for them to focus their attention on more important issues such as health-care reform rather than dabbling with this kind of stimulus.

Regarding Neil's opening comment "A tax break is a different thing from a direct cash subsidy", I don't think there's so much difference. It's just that we all have a natural tendency to think the familiar is automatically natural and appropriate. On moving here from Canada, we were startled to discover that the US makes residential mortgage interest tax deductible. Wow, what a giveway for homeowners! The federal government actually subsidizes you to take out a mortgage - and the bigger the mortgage, the bigger the subsidy! Naturally, we moved from renting to owning a home at the first sensible opportunity.

Could this long-standing US government policy, of incentivizing home ownership for all, have something to do with the present wave of foreclosures?

[KevK]

There probably are not many "clunkers" in the metro because once a car gets about 120,000 or so miles on it here you will find that you have to spend more and more money on it every year to get it past the stringent emissions test here. So lots of folks get rid of them by trading them in for somethng newer (the dealer then either spends the money to get the car to pass emissions or sells it to another dealer outside the metro where they do not have to test).

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by KevK

There probably are not many "clunkers" in the metro because once a car gets about 120,000 or so miles on it here you will find that you have to spend more and more money on it every year to get it past the stringent emissions test here. So lots of folks get rid of them by trading them in for somethng newer (the dealer then either spends the money to get the car to pass emissions or sells it to another dealer outside the metro where they do not have to test).

I dunno, I've seen some real beaters out there than definitely qualify for this program. The problem is, the drivers that I see in those cars look like they don't have a pot to **** in, so even with the extra $4 thrown in, they won't be buying a new car anytime soon.

[RainyRainyDay]

The bill's nickname, "cash for clunkers" is a bit misleading. Many cars that qualify for this are not necessarily what you'd regard as clunkers. My 2001 Jeep Cherokee Sport is in very good condition. However, we would like to get rid of it because it's a gas hog and it's definitely worth less than the government voucher.

[StPaulEastSider]

Originally Posted by KevK

There probably are not many "clunkers" in the metro because once a car gets about 120,000 or so miles on it here you will find that you have to spend more and more money on it every year to get it past the stringent emissions test here. So lots of folks get rid of them by trading them in for somethng newer (the dealer then either spends the money to get the car to pass emissions or sells it to another dealer outside the metro where they do not have to test).

Really?? Huh.

We have a 2000 Ford Taurus Wagon which we intend to "drive into the ground." It currently has 137,000 miles on it.

Unfortunately, this vehicle is listed on the fueleconomy.gov website as having 20 MPG (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/***/noframes/16410.shtml - broken link), so it's not eligible for the "cash for clunkers" program.

When we bought it I purposefully chose the Taurus Wagon over a minivan or SUV for the sake of fuel efficiency. Now that worked out well - geez! I can't tell you how many times I've wished for my minivan back, but no... I just had to "walk the walk" and not drive an environmentally-unfriendly gas guzzling beast of a vehicle. If I'd gone with a minivan back then, I maybe could be using this program to get into a new vehicle now. Geez.

I guess I should see if I could figure out how to test the emissions up here so that we aren't socked with a huge repair bill as soon as we get to Georgia? Then we could decide if we should upgrade now or go with our original plan, which was to drive this car into the ground.

Thanks to Jesse Ventura's one term in office as Minnesota's governor, we no longer have a state emissions test. I'm all into protecting the environmental, but the emissions testing was just one big pain in the arse. Venture's argument was that the problem with air pollution was less so what was emitted and more so how many miles people were driving. His proposal was to shift the monies used for state emissions testing to public transportation, and to educate people to not allow their vehicles to idle for longer than three minutes. Minneapolis even passed an ordinance which levies a fine to those who idle for more than 3 minutes. Sometimes Jesse actually made a lot of sense - LOL.


Our second car is a newer vehicle, so I'm not worried about that one.

Does anyone know where to find the "technical" information I could pass onto my mechanic to help us determine if our vehicle would pass Georgia emissions testing?

[Huckleberry3911948]

the government wants you to IOU 30,000 on a new car to replace the perfectly good one you own.
they want you to be in debt like they are.

[Saintmarks]

The promise of all this doesn't match the reality. The car has to be a gas hog, has to be running and has to be titled to the person trading it in for a full year. The person has to buy a new car, not a used one and it has to have significantly better gas mileage.

Most people in these cars don't have the cash to buy nor the credit to get approved. Just those that have hung on to an old beater and who are ready to buy new will benefit and that is a small percentage of the population.

As much as I disagree with the government throwing money at anything and everything thinking this is going to help our economy, I do think that putting the money in the hands of citizens to get things going is better than throwing more into the open hole of Government Motors and banks and more and more pork. However, this program is a small drop in the bucket and won't help most people.