Cash for clunkers could have hardly been a worse joke. Most often people traded their clunker for cars that only got a 1 to 3 MPG improvement over the clunker they traded in. A typical deal was trading a Ford 150 for a Ford 150s. In numerous cases people traded old cars for new cars that actually got less miles per gallon.
Not only was Cash for Clunkers not that good for the environment it hurt poor people by reducing the number of "clunkers" in the used car inventory. Very low income people who could have traded up from a really bad clunker to a not-so-bad clunker will be unable to do so. The program made "clunkers" more costly by reducing the supply.
The only argument that one could make in favor of the program is that it stimulated the economy by stimulating car sales. Even that argument is debatable. Would the money that consumers spend on cars have been spend on something else that fueled the economy just as well? How many of the sales simply occurred a little sooner than they otherwise would have? Also, many of the new car purchases were of foreign cars so the program may have helped Japan as much as Detroit. Would have a tax cut not done as much to stimulate the economy as subsidizing car sales?
The program was popular with the public who purchased cars using it. People always like free money. I, however, while still driving my old 1996 Mercury Sable am not so pleased that I subsidized my neighbor's new car purchase.
See: Cash for Clunkers plan does little for planet.
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"new cars that actually got less miles per gallon" should read, "new cars that actually got fewer miles per gallon."
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