In more water is wet news here is yet another glowing example of how our government runs a business program. In reply to:
Ahhhh yes....the old "attack and discredit the messenger to divert attention from the message" ploy. Viva la WM...!
Mich, I see you've mastered the ad hominem attack. Care to actually provide any useful commentary to counter the statements made in the OP?
i figure the cost to us is 2 billion dollars considering they are allocating 2 billion dollars to the program. Shocking indeed. it's a stimulus that is working. You may hate the idea of doing any government guided stimulus, but the plan is working as it was intended.
if you mean "working" by have tax dollars averted from paying down the massive debt in order to hand out to people to buy a car thus allowing them to add more personal debt while the government prints more money to service the interest on debt it takes on for idiotic programs like this then, yeah it is working like a charm. que "well bush spent too" retort.
I like the program simply because I can always compare it to Bush's plan of putting billions of cash on pallets and watching it disappear.... I know... I know... It's not fair to make a comparison. I know... I know... it's not fair to show the hypocrisy of the author being quoted....I know... I know... some of you are just angry and the very things you turned a blind eye to from a fiscal responsiblilty perspective for 8 long years, are now suddenly very important to you...
What I"m curious about is, we're in the midst of the worst financial times since the 30s, no one can buy ****. But all of a sudden, people can afford a $300-$500/ month car payment they couldn't afford before, not to mention higher insurance, since undoubtedly their insurance will go up on a brand new car. In 6 months to a year will the government have to come in and force the car dealer to give them cheaper monthly payments, ala something along the lines of the housing debacle so people can keep these cars?
911 Horn - it's alwasy good to understand stimulating spending versus money simply disappearing. You do realize we are talking about roughly the exact came amount of dollars? Or do you not realize this? johnny- it's an OK program to me. I would have made the mileage requirement more. It's much better than allowing massive writeoffs for the purchase of unnecessary gas guzzlers as was pointed out. I would have opted for regulation rather than the no regulation policy that cost us $700 billion in a single month for example. To me it's just funny to see the consternation of those that did not give a **** about the spending until Obama was sworn in. There are a few, and I mean VERY few here that any concerns about deficit spending. The responses were usually "as a percentage of GNP" or "record tax revenues" without any concern for the future. Those same silly folks have their panties wadded up daily now over spending concerns. So I just see the hypocrisy a bit clearer.... Maybe if all the social conservatives turned newly minted fiscal conservatives changed their poster names, they would not be so easily identified as the fiscal flip floppers they obviously are....
The premise of the OP is yet another laugher. Of course there are administrative costs to make the program happen. While one valid criticism mentioned in this thread is that the effciency standards could/should have been higher, realize also that there is a separate built-in feature to the legislation that tends to force higher efficiency ratings in new cars purchased - the new car has to cost less than $45,000. The effect is two-fold: cars on the market today costing less than $45K will tend to get superior mileage than those costing more than 45k, but which otherwise would qualify based on efficiency standards alone. Second, the 45K qualifier helps ensure that the taxpayer money goes to people who actually need the boost to buy a new car and dump their inefficient POS.
Math from facts in this post Program Cost: $1Billion Cars retired: $1 Billion / $6000 per car = ~170k cars "upgraded" Assume 15,000 miles per year per car. that comes to 2.5 Billion miles driven per year at an improved efficiency of (25.3 minus 18.5 equals) 6.8 MPG. That means as a result of this program we will burn 36.3 million fewer gallons of gas per year. it would be interesting if somebody who knew could put that in terms of carbon or pollutants or whatever and then put a price on those pollutants. that would complete the analysis of whether this was a worthwhile undertaking or not.
I think another big positive of this facet of the stimulus that is harder to quantify is the much broader 'marketing effect' it will have on public awareness and acceptance of the importance of improving national fuel efficiency. It will likely shape choices in a multitude of instances where no direct cash incentive is being offered. There are multiple goals in play with this plan, some of which ultimately could be invaluable over the long haul. Spending another $2 billion on this beats burning $10 billion per month in Iraq creating more dead and wounded for years on end.