This is the first week of the government’s Car Allowance Rebate System, aka “Cash for Clunkers”. So far, approximately $35 million of the $1 billion allotted to the program have already been spent. This program, to no one’s surprise, has been remarkable for the automobile industry and below par for everyone else. Tax payer money is used to increase automobile sales, while creating more energy waste in order to produce new cars and destroy old cars. Could this policy possibly be the result of special interest? Consider that our national debt exceeds $11 trillion and the government continues to give $4,500 credit if a driver trades in his or her “clunker,” while the auto industry’s sales have been down 35 percent, despite all the troubles Americans are going through with this economic crisis.
The auto industry has long been the favorite sickly child that the government has sworn to defend to the detriment of everyone else; and that is indeed what is happening. The engines of the cars that are traded in are destroyed in order to allegedly promote fuel efficiency. Instead this program creates unnecessary waste by destroying vehicles that people are content using and having them buy cars that they do not need or can necessarily afford. Prices for replacement parts will also likely rise as more cars are destroyed.
Michelle Bernard was right in her Sunday Reflection that the federal government is making our budget and environmental problems worse simultaneously. It’s quite unfortunate that the government has come to defending the auto industry at the expense of the American people and topping it off by disguising it as a “go green” project.