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DETROIT (AP) -- The government's "cash-for-clunkers" program drew car and truck buyers back to American showrooms last month, making July the best month for auto sales in nearly a year and offering powerful evidence that the rebates were working as senators debate whether to continue them....

By KEN THOMAS and TOM KRISHER

Read the full story.

RoyalOrleans

Well look at what we have here .. a government program that couldn't be properly executed. I'm sure you've been following the giant "oops" that is this "cash for clunkers" deal. The first sign that things were going bad happened when the EPA decided to change which cars were eligible for the program AFTER it had already started. Then the $1 billion allotted to the program quickly disappeared. Then we have government computers that couldn't handle the work. Finally cash-for-clunkers became the clunker.

So what's the logical next step? Let's ask for more money! So the House voted on Friday to give the program another $2 billion. Now it is on to the Senate where it may not be as easy to pass. If it doesn't pass in the Senate, Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood says that the government would probably then kill the program. Meanwhile, car dealerships are left to figure out what to do.

Are you paying attention to this? The whole cash-for-clunkers bit shut down last week because of government bureaucracy and a little problem about running out of money. For generations car salesmen in every corner of this country have been handling the paperwork required to trade in an old car for a new one with ease. After all, how many of you have ever visited a car dealer wanting to trade in a clunker on a new car, only to be told to go away because they just can't process your paperwork.

But ... put government into the equation and what happens? All hell breaks loose, that's what happens. The Imperial Federal Government of the United States interposed federal red tape into the middle of the buyer-used car salesman transaction and everything ground to a screaming halt. How much paper and red tape? Try 130 pages of regulations for a start. How many car salesmen do you think have to deal with a 130-page rule book when they take a car in on trade for a new one.

Now John McCain is likely to filibuster any proposal in the Senate for new money. The Republicans are playing this one up as just another example of government's inability to run anything efficiently. Considering the current healthcare debate, this does not bode well for the Obama administration that wants the government to be in charge of your healthcare. Jim DeMint is one of those Senators who are drawing the comparison. He says, "The federal government went bankrupt in one week in the used-car business, and now they want to run our health care system ... This is crazy to try to rush this thing through again while they're trying to rush through health care, and they want to get on to cap-and-trade electricity tax. We've got to slow this thing down."

OK ... so the government screwed things up royally when politicians inserted government into car sales. Just what in the hell do you think is going to happen when we insert even more government into your relationship with your doctor? If government bureaucracy screws up a car sale, think of what it is going to do for a treatment plan for your cancer.

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END THE FED!!!

An armed society is a polite society.

ImWithStupid

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If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always rely on Paul's vote. ~ Democrat strategy

Bender

Cash for clunkers is AWESOME. It figures you guys would cut it down and call it a failure.


Hell no it ain't!! Thanks to the program, my wife, who was working less then 40 hours a week, is now looking at continuous overtime with no sign of ending. She makes car seats for the Ford Escape hybrid. Her department, and several other departments are running full steam ahead to keep up with the demands. Ford DID have a 180 day supply of cars out there, now thanks to the program, they are down to a 50 day. They usually try to keep it at around 65 day. This is the word at almost every damn car manufacturer and car parts manufacturers all across America. GM recently announced they were rehiring almost every worker at a plant in Michigan. People who were layed off now have jobs. Car dealers who had slumping sales now have record breaking sales. What kind of bullshiit is that cutting down this program?

Another point to be made is the SALES TAX money generated for all these towns.

The government screwed up? Sure, they did. They never anticipated it would be so popular. The program was pegged to be ran until November but ran out of cash in a week. The systems were never setup to be overwhelmed with such a turn out. HELL YEAH !!

It's a PATHETIC argument at best to say it was a bad idea. The Republicans are about to blow a gasket that the Presidents plan has helped America so much, they try and turn it around and call it something else... nice try, but YOU FAIL.

Now you wanna try and say "WELL SEE HEALTH CARE WILL BE THE SAME WAY, ALL SCREWED UP"

HA!!

We could only hope a public health care plan would be the same. If cash for clunkers is any indication of the way health care under Obama would turn out, I say BRING IT ON. It's exactly what America needs.
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Bender

RoyalOrleans

Is this cash for clunkers program actually going to impact the number of car sales? It will affect only the timing of new car sales, not the total sales.

Cash for clunkers is Obamanomics in microcosm

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END THE FED!!!

An armed society is a polite society.

timesjoke

So underestimate the cost of a program to get it passed then when you run out of money to fund the program go back and ask for more money?

Yep, sound like a Government plan to me.

The problem is the scale Bender. This clunker plan was a drop of water in the ocen compared to healthcare and shortfall in funding will not be measured in 1 or 2 billion dollar increments.

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hugo

I will confess that the cash for clunkers program, unlike most of the so-called stimulus packages, does provide short term benefits to the economy. There is a future problem when you subsidize the purchase of a durable good for a limited time period; that problem is sales of that durable good will suffer in future years. The car companies, and their employees, better sock away some of the money they are earning now.

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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many "in shallows and in miseries," are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.

RoyalOrleans

Not to mention the guys in the "junkyard business" or the "spare parts business".

Salvage dealers: sock away money NOW!

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END THE FED!!!

An armed society is a polite society.

eddo

and those that still cannot afford new cars, and are gonna have a harder time now finding reliable used cars- or used parts for their current cars...