Senate Passes "Cash for Clunkers" Program

YahooAuto ^ | 06/19/09 | Ken Thomas

[AngelesCrestHighway]

Congress approved a "cash for clunkers" program Thursday to provide government incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 to motorists who trade in their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles after Senate Democrats narrowly defeated a Republican effort to kill the plan. Auto state senators said the program would help hard-pressed car dealers and automakers by bringing buyers into showrooms, and they got help from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who made calls to wavering Democrats urging them to keep the plan alive. "This is an emergency for families and small businesses -- for an industry that has been the backbone of our economy for a generation," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who sponsored the proposal. Opponents said it would increase the federal debt without doing much to get expensive-to-operate vehicles off the roads.

[Dallas59]

My gas guzzler is paid for and runs like a top.



I bet Homeland Sure-cure-ity will be watching me now...

[sport]

What will eventually happen now is that the government will outlaw the custom, restored, and antique cars. Hell, they will eventually ban the general public[slaves] from owning personal transportation. Kinda like private ownership of firearms and knives. Slaves do not need to possess arms. Only the government will have vehicles and arms.

And the fools cheered,applauded, and agreed.

[NormsRevenge]

So first I pay your mortgage, next I pay for your health care and now I get to buy you a damn car...............change and hope my behind.

—

been meaning to check, can I get the sauna next and bump it ahead of the jacuzzi on the list.. love my sauna. hope you don’t mind. thx for the condo and fiat too. good health. :-}

life is strange and then the tab comes due.

[jyoders19]

What’s another $1 billion for Barry O who has already spent our grandkids into debt, eh?

[ConservativeMind]

What’s next, will the government start buying people’s homes and ripping them down...?

You obviously haven't heard of 0bama’s plans for Flint, MI.

[Uncle Hal]

The junk car dealers must be ecstatic. Cars worth nothing yesterday are all at once worth plenty. I would guess there will be a big resale market for these old clunkers. Unbelievable.

[ConservativeMind]

Paying people for their cars to simply scrap them is far worse to the environment than using them with the energy and pollution already spent to make them.

[wildwood]

here's the galling thing. all they have to do is buy a car that gets either 4mpg or 2 mpg more than their vehicle does now! your tax dollars at work....from yahoo.com

Under the proposal, car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 mpg. The value of the voucher would grow to $4,500 if the mileage of the new car was 10 mpg higher than the old vehicle. The miles per gallon figures are listed on the car window's sticker.

Owners of sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks or minivans that get 18 mpg or less could receive a voucher for $3,500 if their new truck or SUV got at least 2 mpg higher than their old vehicle. The voucher would increase to $4,500 if the mileage of the new truck or SUV was at least 5 mpg higher than the older vehicle.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Dealers participating in the program would receive an electronic voucher from the government for the trade-in to apply to the purchase or lease of a qualifying vehicle.

So the owners don't get the cash, the car dealers do. As if the dealers won't jack up prices by the amount of the voucher...

[americanophile]

"Four Republicans -- Kit Bond of Missouri, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio"

Can we please get the Voinovich the f*ck out of there...what a complete idiot

[river rat]

One of the MANY ways Obama and his fools in Congress are IMPLEMENTING Reparations and transfer of wealth to HIS constituency...

Step by step, Bill by Bill, Tax by Tax it is YOU the productive and succesfull Americans, being FORCED to turn over your “unfairly” accumulated wealth to those who have been the “underachievers”, lazy, drunks, addicts, assholes and leaches their entire life.

[americanophile]

Yes, and the dealers that are left include a high number of Democratic donors who are selling Government Motors cars...this is like a giant money-laundering scheme for the unions.

[RebelTXRose]

Joe Biden: “This is an emergency for families...”

Joe - buying a car is not an emergency! You have to PLAN for a large purchase like that!

[M203M4]

More Keynesian ideas to stimulate the economy:

- use eminent domain to take private property, damage it, and then give it back (more repair work!)

- use smart bombs to take out almost finished construction projects (more employment in construction, and making and dropping bombs)

- hire teenagers to break windows (work for the young, and work for glass manufacturers)

- hire ACORN to thieve and burn goods (increase employment and increase demand!)

- hire thugs to beat people up (increase employment in the healthcare industry)

- make traffic lights operate randomly, while strictly enforcing all traffic laws (generate more revenue, more jobs for police, and more car accidents = more health-care jobs, more auto repair jobs, more auto manufacturing jobs, more funeral parlor jobs, more jobs for florists...)

- (a) hire 100,000 people to dig holes (repeat after b)

(b) hire another 100,000 people to fill them (repeat after a)

- cut off everyone’s left hand (more workers will be needed = lower unemployment)

[SnuffaBolshevik]

As if the dealers won't jack up prices by the amount of the voucher...

You mean this isn't really going to be a Free Lunch?

Damn.

Just Damn.

[ltc8k6]

You only have until November and the program won’t start for a month or so yet.

The vehicle has to have been insured for the past year.

The vehicle has to have an EPA combined rating of 18mpg or less.

You don’t get anything for trade in, the dealer just gets the voucher.

The vehicle can’t be any older than 1984.

The vehicle would have to be worth less than the voucher since there is no trade in value.

My guess is there won’t be too many takers.

[the anti-liberal]

I'm wondering how many cars actually only get 18mpg. That's Lamborghini territory, with a hungry 12 cylinder engine.

There can't be many cars as hungry as that (I could be wrong, it's happened before - once or twice, maybe). This requirement would limit the number of qualifieds, I'd think.

[ltc8k6]

Go to fueleconomy.gov to see your EPA combined rating.

[lojo]

The junk car dealers must be ecstatic. Cars worth nothing yesterday are all at once worth plenty. I would guess there will be a big resale market for these old clunkers. Unbelievable.

From what I have read, the traded in “clunkers” have to be scrapped. They can’t even be sold for parts....

[zek157]

You can also pay for the deadbeats kids college. I know my nephew just got a free ride. His deadbeat parents never saved fifty cents. I suggested he go ROTC, that would be an obligation though. Something for nothing is great isn’t it.

This will end, but so will our way of life with it when the whole rotten structure based on BS, massive public debt and service sucking paresites crumbles.