It seems timing really is everything. If I had waited just one more day to join the thousands filing into car dealers across the country looking to cash in on the government's latest attempt to reboot the economy, the Cash for Clunkers program, I might not have scored my rebate.
"There are quite a few people who are qualifying for this program," said Steve Hansen, a car salesman in Watertown, NY where I went to trade in my own clunker on Thursday, at the time not realizing that the program was doomed. So many, in fact, that the government is considering a suspension of the program at midnight Friday to deal with the backlog. As of late Wednesday, nearly 23,000 cars had been purchased through the program, taking a $96 million dollar bite out of the allotted $1 billion in less than a week.
The rapidly disappearing "Clunker" funds have caught the attention of some in Congress. On Wednesday, Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., wrote a letter to House leaders requesting additional funding for the program. "The federal government must come up with more money, immediately, to keep this program going," she said on Thursday.
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6 comments:
this program is a great idea. it stimulates the economy, but more importantly in my opinion, it gets a lot of old gas guzzling cars off the road and replaces them with fuel efficient vehicles to help with global warming and help slow the overall climate change. I feel proud to have a president and congress that works together for this program and i hope it keeps on trucking.
Globe has been cooling since 2110. My '94 diesel dually at 12 mpg doesn't qualify. Enjoy your new truck on my tab while I cash my next unemployment check which makes my income too high to qualify for health care coverage.
What a wonderful world.
This program also helps lower health costs by providing newer vehicles with internal air filtration. This has always been a goal under Medicare. Oh, give me a break! People do things for money not ideology.
We can guess that the Clunker program was tied to the bailout of GM and Chrysler. There was an early effort to ban "foreign cars" from qualifying. This program funded $1B for cars purchased after July 1 and some dealers noticed this fine print like Pohanka and got an edge on Clunker subsidized sales. Obama did not sign the bill until June 24th and the Government told the dealers it would take them until July 24th to finalize the process (they were 3 days late). Now, the House approves another $2B in funding. The Senate needs to also approve it and Obama will need to sign the final bill authorizing the funding. If it were not for the Congressional Recess, the earliest the new funding could be expected would be September 1st. Expect at least 30 days after that.
We are only talking about Government managing a $3B total funded program. How in the world do we expect them to manage healthcare expected to cost into the trillions?
Wake up!
We need to tell elected officals "NO" to more of this.An entitlement by any other name....
As 6:22 wrote, it takes the government up to five hours to approve a deal made under the klunker program. Many times the government's web site crashes during the entry of the data by a dealer. The delay between signing the contract at the dealership and approval by the government is so long, dealerships are now having customers sign another agreement that if by the time the government gets around to reviewing and approving the deal the funds for the program have been exhausted, the deal between the dealership and customer is void, and the customer must either come up with the $3,500/$4,500 dollars or return the vehicle.
Now how comfortable does that make you feel that the same government wants to regulate health insurance?
Ok folks. Bearer of bad news here. You are likely a sucker for this program unless you "absolutely needed a new car" and had a clunker Reasons:
1) avg car cost 25k. Add about 5% sales tax + reg, title etc. Oh dealer processing fee too and you are already down $1500.
2) yearly property tax (wait to you get the bill compared to your clunker) about $600-1200 a yr depending on where you live .
3)insurance. duh .. I have to pay for that?? Yes. Likely you did not carry collision coverage on your clunker. Depending on your age and driving record figure another $700 yr .
4) But I am saving on gas !!! Are you really? So you get 5 miles a gallon more. Get more done with one trip.
5) Depriciation. That's where the suckers don't get it. Show me one car that doesn't depriciate at least 2K once you drive it off the lot. Buy a Chrysler or GM and it's more like 7k.
So to the first guy that says it stimulates the economy needs to realize it's stimulates more debt on you and more taxes you pay and interest you pay the banks. I'm willing to bet this is like the housing crisis. In about 1 yr 1/3 of these clunker deals will be repossesed by the bank.
To those of you that paid cash for your new cars after turning in your clunker and got $4500 good for you and skip everything above as you are a financial guru.
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