Cash for Clunkers
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090505/...s_energy_autos

Pretty pointless, IMO. You know the reason people probably drive beaters in the 1st place is because they can't afford new cars. I don't think $4,500 will help that much.

Yay my kids are paying for cletus to trade in his beater for a prius! -_-

Great! Besides me subsidizing my neighbor's house they can't afford. Let's also incentivise having him buy a car he otherwise wouldn't purchase.

How about this for a new business. Buy used cars that can barely run or needs minimal capital expenditure to get running and sell them at a small premium so people can get the voucher from the govt. for a new car. Win Win for all.

Damn shame this legislation won't help me... I'm almost $4k upside down on my RX8 loan, but I'd need trade-in + $4k, and this deal will only be for $4500 straight up... I love my -8, but I need a bigger car since I'm getting married next month, and she has a 7 year old. My car just isn't practical anymore, and there's no chance I'm going to take a negative trade for something else!!

I like this legislation better than the BS "$8,000 for 1st time homebuyers"... Yeah, because what we really need is even more home "owners" that can't afford their mortgages... Need to stimulate the housing market by getting current home owners to trade/move, not by 1st time homebuyers. A whole bunch of people not being able to afford a house yet they want to buy a $250k "starter home" is what got us into this mess in the first place...

Free money from the government is always a bad thing. If more and more people are becoming dependant on government money, less people pay their share of taxes and then the country goes further and further into debt. -_-

Great, how many billions more are we going to dump into the automotive industries?

America needs jobs - not promises of unicorns and fairies.

lol yep.

should have just nipped it in the bud months ago.

+1!!

All this bailout money eventually is going to come full circle and bite us in the ass. Not to be harsh here but sometimes you need to let things fail. Restore the economy and people will start spending money again.

anybody know if the rx8 qualifies? do we get into the 18 mpg combined category?

edit:
Ah nm, fyi:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/noframes/20621.shtml
states the rx-8 has a combined mpg of 18.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...nid=t0:pcs:104
stipulates that an "eligible trade-in vehicle" needs a combined mpg of 18.

http://nickmilne.files.wordpress.com...cepalm2sn8.jpg

I have yet to find ONE person who thinks this is a good idea.

it has to have been insured for the last year to prevent this.

i think it's stupid to continue bailing people out but i'd def take advantage if i could to get some of my tax dollars back. ;) i just don't own an insured beater..

yea, i'm not gonna go for it. i'd like to say it's nice to have options, but unless i were able to afford a new car, there's no point.

horrible idea. thanks obama :)

sure a 04 would qualify but whyyy if you already got it paid off

Total waste of legislation. If I had an 85 Trans Am I would smoke the tires in their faces.

wait a minute, since CAFE, no car made in the last 25 years gets less than 18 mpg combined.

this money is for no one. wth?

Yes, it appears that you may trade IN your 2005 RX-8 according to the current rules.

Is it worth less than $4,500? YES - scrap it via Uncle Sam for $4,500 when you buy a new vechicle that gets over 28 MPG (or $3,500 for over 22 MPG)

Note that NEW VECHICLE purchased can not be a 2009 RX-8 as it does not get over 22 MPG combined

CAFE is an average of ALL* cars sold by a car COMPANY* standing for CORPORATE AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY where the feds have their own definitions for ALL, COMPANY, and AVERAGE.

The money is for someone who is driving a car newer than 1985 that was rated at less than 18 MPG when new and is currently worth less than $4,500 who would have bought a new vechicle getting at least 28 MPG if their current vechicle was worth $4,500 trade in. We can't say no one qualifies but you are right very few people will qualify. I think I have an old junker pickup used as a third car that might qualify but I don't need a new car to haul fertilzer.

Aw come on, this is America!!!! :D:

yea we need more jobs not more ways to spend money! why dnt they get that this program is gnna result in a gazillion repoed cars a few years down the road

I don't like the part where the vehicle HAS to be scrapped. Why can't a perfectly good vehicle be donated to a charity or a family in need. I guess the bleeding hearts weren't present when this was drafted.

The only way this program will get used is by desperate dealerships about to go out of business, scamming the government.

Seriously. If anyone has a low mileage car worth less than $3,500 or $4,500, they can't afford to get a new car even with said $3,500 or $4,500 down. And then there is a large slice of the population that is driving low mileage 'clunkers' for the utility of it. As one article said, you will have a hard time convincing that farmer to trade his Dodge Ram for a Toyota Prius.



The only good side to this whole thing is:
The fewer people use it, the less it will cost the rest of us.