What a nightmare:
A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.Here is the most galling part:
...The Cash for Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel economy requirements. A total of $3 billion was allotted for those rebates.
The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.
"It is unfortunate that Edmunds.com has had nothing but negative things to say about a wildly successful program that sold nearly 250,000 cars in its first four days alone," said Bill Adams, spokesman for the Department of Transportation. "There can be no doubt that CARS drummed up more business for car dealers at a time when they needed help the most."I'm at a loss for words. When confronted with evidence of the program's failure the DOT spokesman essentially criticizes Edmunds for being mean. Apparently all that is needed to make the country run efficiently is not cold hard data and analysis but good intentions and warm fuzzies. The mind boggles at what a government takeover of health care would look like.
1 comment:
I am going to start a regular theme on our blog of "Who/What do you trust?", where I lay out examples like this and simply challenge readers to declare who or what proposal they trust and why. It seems like the most effective way to get people to actually discuss why they believe the things they do, rather than simply make declarations based upon the warm fuzzies they get in being politically correct.
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