Here is a copy of the letter I began posting a couple weeks ago.
Obama’s Clunker of a Car Program
The “cash for clunkers” is in trouble not only because it is running out of money, but because dealers are unsure about how and if they will be reimbursed. The dealers sign all the papers with the customer, turn over the new car, and then submit the documents to the government for analysis and payment.
The process seems similar to the federal direct student loan program I refused to participate in when I was finance manager for a private college. After carefully reading the regulations, I discovered there was no point at which the Department of Education formally and unconditionally accepted the loan papers. Years later when a student defaulted there was nothing to prevent the government from returning the loan package to the college, and demanding payment in full for a just then discovered error according to the regulations they wrote. In Oregon I had the option of working with the state and private lenders to access the federal loan programs.
Car dealerships are not as fortunate. When other dealerships in the area are getting sales, a finance manager who brings up the uncertainties and frustrations of working with a typically imperious bureaucracy will lose.
THINK of the mess if the Fed.gov tries to implement a gun “buyback” program! LOL.