From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
Mike has hit the airwaves lately talking about Ford’s cash for clunkers. Apparently he did a really good job. After five days of kicking into gear, the program has hit the brakes. Why? Because they burned through all the money available. The government thought it would last until November. Plans are afoot to pump additional cash into the program. Check out this Los Angeles Times article by Tiffany Hsu and Martin Zimmerman and Jim Puzzanghera for all the details.
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — With surprising swiftness, the government’s “cash for clunkers” program has burned through its $1-billion budget in less than a week as car buyers swarmed dealerships, and federal officials were scrambling late Thursday night to find more money to keep it going.
The program, designed to jump-start car sales and improve the fuel efficiency of the nation’s auto fleet, unleashed a wave of pent-up demand that threatened to exhaust funds before dealers could be fully reimbursed for rebates under the plan.
As word got out Thursday that the program might be suspended at midnight, some car dealers reported a surge in nighttime buyers. But government officials later said the program — dubbed CARS for Car Allowance Rebate System — was not going to be suspended overnight.
“We are working tonight to assess the situation facing what is obviously an incredibly popular program,” the White House said. “Auto dealers and consumers should have confidence that all valid CARS transactions that have taken place to date will be honored.”
Read the rest of the LA Times piece here. You can still check on the list of eligible clunkers here but check with your dealer first before heading over to the car lot. You might have to wait for the next wave!
3 Comments
Most of the cars being traded in are gas guzzlers. Also most of the people buying cars, were not going to buy newer cars because they could not aford it with some of the trade in offers and banks being tight on loans. I think this was a great service. Most of the cars bought were way above what congress set for fuel economy. People were trading in there big gas guzzlers for smaller cars.
Cars running on Diesel fuel get better mileage that cars running on gas and Diesels are not as heavy polluters as gas. Also all new diesel do not have a black soot cloud behind them. Europe and several other continents run more diesels that we do here.
If the United States would worry more about how much fuel they are buring and less about how fast we can get there, we would be better off.
Actually, what I find sad/ironic/frustrating is that the after the House voted overwhemling to rework the books and find another 2Billion the Senate has to vote on it next week and they’re already grumbling about changing it. Say, what you will about taxpayers being on the hook, at least this money is being instantly pumped into the economy and now it looks like the Senate might mess it up. Gotta love the gov!
Didn’t somebody at the White House consider this possibility?? They need to get rid of whatever genius thought this up. Yeah, let’s get the taxpayers paying even more taxes because $1B didn’t last 3 weeks for this “plan”. Brilliant.