Should The Government Spend More Money on the Cash for Clunkers Program?

How much of my money is the Fed. govt. going to spend to "stimulate" the auto industry?

Stop the madness already.

BTW - good article in the WSJ.

No. End the program. Government responsibility is to build the roads, not buy the cars we drive.

Giving away money is popular, therefore we should give away more?

No.

Absolutely and totally. If there's some way to encourage Americans to cut emissions and the cost and death toll of accidents by trading in older, dirtier, and much less safe cars and into new ones, all the while SAVING them money and keeping them safer on the roads, then do it.

The next time you see a fatal car accident in a 1990 model, you'll understand.

A family I know lost 2/3 of its members in a crash, and their vehicle at the time had a bad safety rep. Since then, they've purchased a Honda. But I can't help but think if they'd been in the Honda at the time. A life could have been saved. LIVES could have been saved.

Cash for Clunkers is exactly what will prevent this from happening. Ask any relative of an accident victim about the accident. Which occurrs about every 12 minutes. Hurry.

No. It's costing me money, not saving me money. Why should my hard-earned money be stolen by the government, so that people who optioned their cars with big engines in the '90s can get brand new vehicles?

It's not forcing you to buy a new car, but it saves you money if you do. There's a difference.

And, of course, it also saves you money on gas.

It's not saving the environment. Who's taking advantage of this? People who can afford new AND have an old clunker sitting around. That's probably someone with 3+ cars, one of which doesn't get used a lot. They're taking that rarely used vehicle off the road and destroying it. In it's place they're trashing the environment by building a new car. Since when is not recycling considered green?

Ditto on greenpony's comment. My tax dollars should not be stolen to benefit the above people.

Octavarium, it's sweet that you think it's the responsibility of the public to make sure people can afford "safe" cars. But it's not. Their choice.

Sorry, I don't feel my tax dollars should do anything beyond build infrastructure (roads, bridges, communications), encourage commerce (laws, courts, rules, prisons, schools, research) and provide for defense of public property (military/police). Health? that's a private concern. Safety? In terms of criminals, sure but in terms of helmets and airbags? No.

Basically this program is bribing you to get your old cars off of our highways for good. It's an expensive way to go about it to be sure. Once the trading dealer "kills" the engine it is sent to a salvage yard for crushing. I just don't know if is worth $4500 a piece to get these cars off of the road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8IM550tTU

It's as if lawmakers listening to economic logic, and simply opted to go the opposite direction. This program needs to end. Granted at this juncture it's only $1-3 billion, and I don't like to admit this, Ron Paul was right in that video, if some see this as a success, it can be utilized across the board later causing more problems.

"Only" $1-3 billion?!? I dunno about you, but that's a lot of money to me.

Ron Paul was right on a LOT of things. Not just this. The whole economic picture right now was predicted by Dr. Paul and Peter Schiff over 5 years ago, and they were lambasted and laughed at on national television.

As I've said elsewhere on this blog, this program hurts the poor, it hurts the environment, it drains the average American of money that THEY earned, and it further puts this country into debt (both national and personal). And I'll add to this: this program doesn't do ANYTHING to keep people safer. Sorry, octavarium, but you provide no proof of it, and I highly doubt any exists.

From the Wall Street Journal

"On the other hand, this is crackpot economics. The subsidy won’t add to net national wealth, since it merely transfers money to one taxpayer’s pocket from someone else’s, and merely pays that taxpayer to destroy a perfectly serviceable asset in return for something he might have bought anyway. By this logic, everyone should burn the sofa and dining room set and refurnish the homestead every couple of years."

Anyone who pays taxes should be mad as hell. Oh, by the way, the Federal government is laying the groundwork for increasing taxes on the middle class.

"In an editorial on February 26, “The 2% Illusion,” we wrote that the feds could take 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning more than $500,000 and still have raised only $1.3 trillion even in the boom year of 2006. The rich are fewer and less rich now, while the Obama budget is nearly $4 trillion."

How much increased emissions are being produced by ruining these cars' engines, wasting fuel by holding them at high revs for the time it takes them to seize, while they're blowing clouds of smoke as they're forcibly destroyed from within? Many of these engines have many thousands of miles left in them.

Obama and his minions want to tear down the productive sectors of our country so that he can rebuild and reshape them in his image. I pray that he does not succeed.

Hey flicmod, did you read Peter Schiff's book, Crash Proof? I found it to be quite enlightening...