Underfunded, Government considering scrapping Cash for Clunkers

[sandorski]

This Thread is full of Fail. The success of the Program was much greater than anticipated, so they suspended the Program to work through the Backlog of Vehicle Sales to be Processed. That's about the extent of it. It was far more Successful than anyone imagined it would be.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
If every one of the 23,000 participating stores conducted the average number of trades (13) prior to the suspension of the program, then the entire program may have gone over budget by approximately 49,000 vehicles. Which means, using an average of $4000 per rebate, they might have gone over budget by roughly $196 million.

That's the U.S. Government at work folks.

Ya gotta love it...

Sounds like the program worked too well.

Obviously. But more importantly, to me, it demonstrates yet another complete failure by Congress to plan and budget a program appropriately.

Huh? They budgeted $1 billion and said that once the money was used up, the program would be over.

 

[theeedude]

I love how the supposedly "small government" crowd is complaining that the government didn't approve more funds for this program.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: senseamp
I love how the supposedly "small government" crowd is complaining that the government didn't approve more funds for this program.

The original bill that passed the House specified $4 billion.
http://www.govtrack.us/data/us...ext/111/h/h2751pcs.pdf

Don't know why it was reduced to $1 billion.

 

[Elfear]

I'm actually surprised that so many people were able to qualify considering the somewhat backwards target demographic.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity
It had 1 billion in funding, it has used $950 million, it is over. Probably happened faster than expected, but it was still planned to end. It is the same with rebates for hybrids, once a certain number of of specific model is purchased the rebate amount is either reduced or ended. It simply means they hit their budgeted target and x number of 'clunkers' have been replaced.

Where do you see 950 million? I see 96 to 100 million (26,000+ * 4000 avg deal)?

 

[piasabird]

I think the German version of this program, from which the Obamma communism for car program was modeled after had it right. Under the German plan, if your car was ten years old it was a clunker. No insurance and no fancy recomputing of existing MPG numbers by the EPA (Yes the EPA recomputed MPG numbers on over 100 cars). I think a better name for this plan is Welfare for Car Dealers. This has nothing to do with helping people or helping the economy. It is 100% far left Communism.

What the O'Bamma fascist white house does not understand is that if you put money in the hands of people they will spend it and the economy would do fine. This is similar to how O'Bammas plan to rewrite house loans for rich people.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
If every one of the 23,000 participating stores conducted the average number of trades (13) prior to the suspension of the program, then the entire program may have gone over budget by approximately 49,000 vehicles. Which means, using an average of $4000 per rebate, they might have gone over budget by roughly $196 million.

That's the U.S. Government at work folks.

Ya gotta love it...

Sounds like the program worked too well.

This is what they should have done instead of giving money to GM/Chrysler to begin with. Take about half of that money and do a large scale program like this....everybody wins (relatively speaking) vs just giving up the money the other way.

 

[umbrella39]

Originally posted by: sandorski
This Thread is full of Fail. The success of the Program was much greater than anticipated, so they suspended the Program to work through the Backlog of Vehicle Sales to be Processed. That's about the extent of it. It was far more Successful than anyone imagined it would be.

Anyone trying to paint this any differently has an agenda.

 

[Harvey]

I'm sorry to see this program run into problems. The idea is sound. It saves money several ways:

1. Buyers save money in fuel savings. The worse the milage of their old car and the better the new one, the more they save. See the chart.

2. Buyers trading in older cars get more than they otherwise would for thier clunkers.

3. Depending on the age and condition of the old car, they may also save money on repairs and maintainance costs.

There are further benefits to the economy because newer, more efficient cars cause less pollution, which has both short and long term benefits, and it generates revenues for car dealerships, possibly saving jobs in both sales and service.

I don't have a full set of hard numbers, but the concept is sound. I hope it can be revived and that it works.

Originally posted by: lupi

who the fuck is using this program?

People who are probably smarter than you because they used it, instead of bitching about it.

the damn list of valid turn in's is more restrictive than an 18yo virgins panties.

Somehow, I doubt your any kind of authority on that, either. :laugh:

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: piasabird
I think the German version of this program, from which the Obamma communism for car program was modeled after had it right. Under the German plan, if your car was ten years old it was a clunker. No insurance and no fancy recomputing of existing MPG numbers by the EPA (Yes the EPA recomputed MPG numbers on over 100 cars). I think a better name for this plan is Welfare for Car Dealers. This has nothing to do with helping people or helping the economy. It is 100% far left Communism.

My car is 15 years old and did not meet the MPG qualifications.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'm actually surprised that so many people were able to qualify considering the somewhat backwards target demographic.

to change out a truck for a new truck their was no standard for the old model, just the new. Gonna go on a limb and say that's were the bulk of the money went.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: sandorski
This Thread is full of Fail. The success of the Program was much greater than anticipated, so they suspended the Program to work through the Backlog of Vehicle Sales to be Processed. That's about the extent of it. It was far more Successful than anyone imagined it would be.

Anyone trying to paint this any differently has an agenda.

Exactly. It served its purpose and had overwhelming reception.

What is bad about that?

 

[Uhtrinity]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity
It had 1 billion in funding, it has used $950 million, it is over. Probably happened faster than expected, but it was still planned to end. It is the same with rebates for hybrids, once a certain number of of specific model is purchased the rebate amount is either reduced or ended. It simply means they hit their budgeted target and x number of 'clunkers' have been replaced.

Where do you see 950 million? I see 96 to 100 million (26,000+ * 4000 avg deal)?

That is what the Freep article was throwing around.

 

[glenn1]

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity
It had 1 billion in funding, it has used $950 million, it is over. Probably happened faster than expected, but it was still planned to end. It is the same with rebates for hybrids, once a certain number of of specific model is purchased the rebate amount is either reduced or ended. It simply means they hit their budgeted target and x number of 'clunkers' have been replaced.

so, what you are saying is, the 4 days that this has run for, FOUR DAYS... of there FIVE MONTH offer... and they ran out of funding... what retard wrote that up? oh, right the democrats.

More successful than expected. It was the same with hybrid rebates, some went quick, some went much longer. Depends on how many sold. Looks like this was good to auto dealers and their stalled sales if they sold 250,000 cars in 4 days ...... stimulus money at work.

And off off topic ..... be kind and pm me and I might have a x800 cooler for you.

It's also entirely possible that many of those 250k vehicles would have been sold anyway; potential buyers would have bought earlier in the year but just delayed their purchases until they could take advantage of this program.

 

[Carmen813]

So, for those of you have been following in guild chat the past few days, my wife and I were debating turning in her 88 Lincoln Town Car via the Cash for Clunkers program

We settled on a 2009 Hyundai Elantra GLS.

We went to meet with the dealer tonight to finalize the deal. The plates were already transferred to the new car, as was our insurance. We had given the title to the dealer. We had ripped the car stereo out of my wife's car. We were waiting to sign the forms when the dealers intercom went off and announced:

"The CARS program is being suspended. Halt all pending deals."



Needless to say, we just got home pretty disappointed. Hopefully the program will get some more funding or they will unfreeze it tomorrow, but who knows. For tonight, we're getting drunk. Wife was interviewed by local news as we left, they recorded us leaving our new car behind.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: sandorski
This Thread is full of Fail. The success of the Program was much greater than anticipated, so they suspended the Program to work through the Backlog of Vehicle Sales to be Processed. That's about the extent of it. It was far more Successful than anyone imagined it would be.

Anyone trying to paint this any differently has an agenda.

Successful in which way? The only way I see it being successful is the amount of people that used the program. How the program was setup is another story. Mismanaged as far as not know how many rebates were going out the door, to the stupid 2 MPG increase, this is what happens when you got liberal or republicans pushing shit thru that no one has thought it through.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
If every one of the 23,000 participating stores conducted the average number of trades (13) prior to the suspension of the program, then the entire program may have gone over budget by approximately 49,000 vehicles. Which means, using an average of $4000 per rebate, they might have gone over budget by roughly $196 million.

That's the U.S. Government at work folks.

Ya gotta love it...

Sounds like the program worked too well.

Obviously. But more importantly, to me, it demonstrates yet another complete failure by Congress to plan and budget a program appropriately.

I saw an ad for an item at a store and went to buy it and they were sold out before the sale ended.

It was yet another complete failure for the private sector to plan and budget a program appopriately.

Congress set a program up to provide a certain stimulus to the car industry while eliminating a certain number of cars. It was more popular than expected.

Let's see how YOU would have done it better.

Option 1: You're for a *bigger* government program. They should have spent more billions on this for more cars. That's not a failed program, but an undersized one.

Option 2: They shouldn't have had the program at all. Then, we'd save the billion, but not have stimulated the car industry and left the lower MPG cars on the road.

I don't see you having any point here, just blind attacking anything by Democrats.

The Democrats did a program that worked very well, meeting all its benefits, only being so popular it was used up too quickly.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: glenn1
It's also entirely possible that many of those 250k vehicles would have been sold anyway; potential buyers would have bought earlier in the year but just delayed their purchases until they could take advantage of this program.

So what?

That's how it works - an incentive program isn't 100% efficient. How do you separate the buyers who 'would have bought anyway' from those who wouldn't?

When a store has a sale to stimulate sales, it brings in some customers who wouldn't have bought, and gives a discount to customers who would have bought anyway.

You don't see sales where the cashier asks the person 'would you have bought this anyway:? You don't get the discount if you say yes.'

The main time businesses can do this is for ongoing subscriptions, when you see newspapers, cable, magazines offer a low rate only to new subscribers.

Buying a car isn't a subscription.

So again, this is how it's done, and you can only offer the alternative of just not doing the program - leaving the industry without the new buyers, and some of the cars on the road.

Another post without a point, but just a criticism to attack anything with the 'Democrat' name on it.

 

[RU482]

at $4500 a head, that's 222,222 vehicles

2007 sales total was 16,000,000 vehicles

16,000,000 / 365 = 48,835 per day

I don't think it's too far out of line that the program ran out of money so quick. Wish I would have had a qualifying vehicle, but whatever. $1B is a drop in the bucket these days I just can't believe they thought it would last through Nov

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'm actually surprised that so many people were able to qualify considering the somewhat backwards target demographic.

What?

 

[RU482]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'm actually surprised that so many people were able to qualify considering the somewhat backwards target demographic.

What?

yeah, no shit. I know tons of people that make the new standard of richness ($250K) that have a 2ND/3RD/4TH/whatever extra beater truck or car that qualifies. PLUS, they have the extra cash to AFFORD a NEW car.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'm actually surprised that so many people were able to qualify considering the somewhat backwards target demographic.

What?

He means the program was meant to target the poor, I think.

 

[ericlp]

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
If every one of the 23,000 participating stores conducted the average number of trades (13) prior to the suspension of the program, then the entire program may have gone over budget by approximately 49,000 vehicles. Which means, using an average of $4000 per rebate, they might have gone over budget by roughly $196 million.

That's the U.S. Government at work folks.

Ya gotta love it...

Sounds like the program worked too well.

yep... Snooze ya loze... just like with every hot deal you better jump on it or it's gonna be gone!

 

[TheSkinsFan]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
If every one of the 23,000 participating stores conducted the average number of trades (13) prior to the suspension of the program, then the entire program may have gone over budget by approximately 49,000 vehicles. Which means, using an average of $4000 per rebate, they might have gone over budget by roughly $196 million.

That's the U.S. Government at work folks.

Ya gotta love it...

Sounds like the program worked too well.

Obviously. But more importantly, to me, it demonstrates yet another complete failure by Congress to plan and budget a program appropriately.

I saw an ad for an item at a store and went to buy it and they were sold out before the sale ended.

It was yet another complete failure for the private sector to plan and budget a program appopriately.

Congress set a program up to provide a certain stimulus to the car industry while eliminating a certain number of cars. It was more popular than expected.

Let's see how YOU would have done it better.

Option 1: You're for a *bigger* government program. They should have spent more billions on this for more cars. That's not a failed program, but an undersized one.

Option 2: They shouldn't have had the program at all. Then, we'd save the billion, but not have stimulated the car industry and left the lower MPG cars on the road.

I don't see you having any point here, just blind attacking anything by Democrats.

The Democrats did a program that worked very well, meeting all its benefits, only being so popular it was used up too quickly.

Me personally? I would have gone with Option 2 because I am strongly opposed to the Government blatantly interfering with the free markets and using my tax dollars to do so. I've been against every "stimulus" and "bailout" plan from the start -- they're all shit.

But, if I were forced to plan and budget for a program like this, albeit against my wishes, I still would have done much better research and then set the backend of the system up to handle the expected high volume. I also would have implemented much more stringent requirements for participation in the program.

2 mpg improvements?! What a fucking joke.

I'm not attacking "Democrats" here. Unlike you, I'm not a partisan tool -- I despise all politicians equally. None of them "represent" me, and all of them are functionally retarded when it comes to fiscal responsibility.