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Recent disclosure that the so-called “cash for clunkers” government program that paid new car buyers up to $4500 each for the trade-in of qualifying vehicles actually cost taxpayers an average of over $24,000 per trade-in due to government “red tape,” prompted a scathing response on the whitehouse.gov web site. “Quibbling over the cost to taxpayers is both untimely and unseemly,” wrote an anonymous White House staffer. “The important objective is to pump money into the economy. It wouldn’t have mattered if we simply threw currency from the windows of a moving car. In this case, the government employees who processed...

To hear President Obama crow in vindication of his Stimulus Bill, one would think the light at the end of the tunnel is visible on the economic front. Obama has taken credit for the third quarter GDP growth of 3.5% as well he should. However, we need to examine what that growth was based upon and whether it was a bona fide growth of the economy or the counting of stolen booty. The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and residential fixed...

White House fights back on Cash for Clunkers Obama administration goes to battle with Edmunds.com on Cash for Clunkers analysis, saying the program contributed heavily to last quarter's economic expansion. By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer Last Updated: October 29, 2009: 5:51 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration on Thursday lashed out at a prominent critic of its Cash for Clunkers program, arguing that the popular trade-in initiative helped give the auto industry and the economy a much needed boost in the past few months. In a blog post on whitehouse.gov, the administration argued that a report...

Visit the federal government web site for the recently-concluded “Cash for Clunkers” program and you’ll find the program described as “enormously successful”. Contrary to that claim, however, Edmunds.com research revealed yesterday that the program, which enabled a car buyer to pay as much as $4,500 less for a new vehicle, actually cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.

Auto sales analysts at Edmunds.com say the pricey program resulted in relatively few additional car sales. -- A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com. Still, auto sales contributed heavily to the economy's expansion in the third quarter, adding 1.7 percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product growth. Is the economy really getting better? The Cash for Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up...

On August 13 I posted a piece wherein I facetiously asked "Why does Obama hate the poor?" Then I pointed out that the cash for clunkers program was likely to cause the price of used cars to skyrocket in the near future. I also asserted that the reason this will be so is because Obama's clunkers program was set to destroy hundreds of thousands of otherwise perfectly functional cars all of which would have ended up on the used car market were it not for Obama's interventionism. It really is the most simple principle of supply and demand, so simple...

At least one group of needy Americans is getting timely government assistance during this recession – golf cart purchasers: We thought cash for clunkers was the ultimate waste of taxpayer money, but as usual we were too optimistic. Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama’s stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart. The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states...

SO...you took FEDZILLA up on its offer of $4500. dollars to trade in your old "Clunker" (interesting choice of words)? Well, let's see who got the best of that "deal"... If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you got $4500 off for an apparent "savings" of $1000. You could have gotten $3,500 if you had just traded the car in. So you really are $1,000 ahead (depending on your clunker's value) at this point. Not too bad.... However, you WILL have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If...

The verdict is finally in on the “cash for clunkers” program, and I doubt that any rational person will applaud. I know you will find this hard to believe, but, it appears that new car sales weren’t “stimulated” at all, they were just moved from one time period to another.

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- In the first month after the end of the "cash-for-clunkers" program, automakers on Thursday are reporting virtually across-the-board sales declines with Chrysler and General Motors seeing volumes nearly halved, but Ford not hit as hard as expected and even robust gains for Hyundai.

The automotive-information Web site Edmunds.com said it expects seasonally adjusted sales in September will be the worst of 2009, down 3 percent vs. February — "the darkest month of the recession" — and down 30 percent vs. last September "when the bottom was falling out of the economy." Dropping with the sales are the profits of dealers, who this month have had to goose incentives even as they carry hundreds of millions in debt as they wait for the government to make good on its Clunker vouchers. "The best month of the year for car sales is being quickly followed...

A couple in California turned over their 2001 Nissan X-Terra for the Cash for Clunkers program, but a few weeks later they discovered that the dealer decided to put it back up for sale instead of destroying it as per the program's rules. The dealership says it never asked for the government credit and decided instead to treat the X-Terra as a trade-in. They never told that to the customers, however, who thought the X-Terra would be destroyed. The customers told the U.S. Department of Transportation that they participated in the program specifically to get the 17 MPG X-Terra off...

While President Obama delivers speeches praising the alleged success of Cash for Clunkers, a former rebate processor for the federal program is calling it "complete chaos." After the federal "Cash for Clunkers" program ended Aug. 24, the Department of Transportation reported that nearly 700,000 clunkers were taken off the roads and replaced by more fuel-efficient vehicles. Rebate applications worth $2.877 billion were submitted by the 8 p.m. deadline. The Transportation Department hired federal employees and private contract workers to process the rebates vouchers so car dealers would be compensated. Former White House aide Kathleen Willey was hired as an employee...

It has been nearly a month since the car-buying frenzy of the Cash for Clunkers program ended, and many area auto dealers are longing for the good old days of July and August. Like consumers nationwide, Massachusetts residents rushed to take advantage of the federal voucher program, which offered them up to $4,500 on old gas-guzzlers to be put toward the purchase of new, more fuel-efficient vehicles. About $65 million worth of vouchers were handed out statewide during the monthlong program that ended Aug. 24. But once the federal money dried up, so did the sales rally. Now, customers at...

Clay, New York (WSYR-TV) Fewer used cars on the lot are driving up the price for those in the market looking for another car. "Part of the problem why the price is going up because the availability of the cars is a little bit lower," says Tom Loving of Summit Chevrolet. The higher prices are making car shopping a little more difficult for Kara Hooker, who was searching for a used car Friday night at the Great Northern Mall. "I missed out on the Cash for Clunkers deal because my car is a Volkswagen and you don't get anything for...

A vehicle getting 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline. A vehicle getting 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons per year. That equates to saving a bit over 5 million barrels of oil per year. I repeat - per YEAR. 5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's U.S. consumption. And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350...

Here is video from NBC last night where Brian Williams reported that the Obama Administration's "Cash for Clunkers" program was underwhelming in helping Chrysler and General Motors. Of the big three American car makers, only Ford was up in August sales over August 2008, with a 17% gain. Chrysler was down 15%, and General Motors was down 20% - even with the "Cash for Clunkers" incentive. Toyota was up 6%. NOTE: What happens in the coming months with no government boondoggle incentive? . . . .(VIDEO)

MONTGOMERY | The popular Cash for Clunkers program helped new car dealers, but it is dramatically raising the price of relatively inexpensive used cars, hurting the poor, dealers say. The Car Allowance Rebate System, commonly called Cash for Clunkers, took 690,000 operable cars out of the market, which is beginning to reflect effects of the shortage. A smaller supply of used cars over the next six months will affect the auto parts market that lower-income drivers and hobbyists rely on to keep their older cars running. Ronnie Watkins is a Ford dealer in Gadsden. He said he told his car...

WASHINGTON — The Cash for Clunkers buzz is starting to wear off and it seems that some buyers are having serious second thoughts about getting on that government-funded bandwagon, according to a new survey. In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Transportation said that dealers by Tuesday's deadline had submitted a final total of 690,114 Cash for Clunkers deals for $2.88 billion in rebates. The total is just under the revised $3-billion budget for the four-week program. The new survey by CNW Purchase Path, of Bandon, Oregon, finds that of nearly 1,000 Cash for Clunkers participants, 17 percent say they...