Cash For Clunkers helped sell Hummers
Filed under: Transportation
The Transportation Department has released sales figures for Cash For Clunkers, one of the greatest frauds of the past few months, and the results are interesting.Fifteen 2009 Hummer H3T's were sold and paid for in part with taxpayer money.
Hummers. Now defenders of the program will of course be quick to point out that in the grand scheme of the program, 15 Hummers is not a lot -- 29,488 Toyota Corollas were sold. But that's beside the point.
Here's the fact: The Cash for Clunkers program forcibly confiscated money from some Americans (or, in the case of deficit spending, the disenfranchised grandchildren who will inherit this mess) and literally used it to buy Hummers for other Americans.
Does anyone reading this not have a serious problem with that? Have we lost our way so much in this wave of bailouts and economic stimulus that no one bats an eye when their neighbor sends them a bill for a new Hummer?
Can someone please get outraged about this?
We can debate back and forth the environmental merits of the program -- and most unbiased observers seem to agree that it's a wash at best with a number of negative unintended consequences. But of course Transporation Secretary Ray Lahood continues to ignore all the evidence and trumpet what a great "win-win" this handout to a bailed out industry is.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-22-2009 @ 4:21PM
Pat said...
The whole problem with this program was they ran it at a time when the market group, people with older cars, could not take advantage of it. I mean running a program like this during a time of the highest unemployment benefited no one but the rich. The creditors are at a bust and the ones this should of benefited could not get the credit to pay for the remaining bill. This program should have been scrapped until it was thought through better. Destroying so many cars that were 4 or 5 years old was just plain STUPID! Why not take those and then have a clunker trade in where people with bigger clunkers could have got those ones?? Just another assinine bailout is all this was. The drafters of this should have all their assests and that of their grandchildren stripped away just to show them what it is like for the rest of us that footed this bill!
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9-22-2009 @ 5:54PM
Hummer Guy said...
I'm not a fan of the program myself -- but why does buying a HUMMER differ from any other vehicle on the list?
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9-22-2009 @ 6:22PM
DougHwrite said...
Where does AOL come up with these ridiculous writers? 15 Hummers out of 450,000 vehicles in the program is beside the point? Are you insane? The percentage of Hummers in this program is so low my calculator couldn't even do the division. This IS exactly the point: people who needed cars and couldn't afford them before GOT cars that in most cases (THIS WAS THE LAW) got better mileage than their old car. The dealer got paid for cars that were otherwise sitting on his lot. The insurance company sold new policies, and the junkyard had to hire people to take care of the scrap. Your negative comments are pure and utter b-- sh--.
You can't argue that all of the facts against you are "beside the point" just because you say so. What a f---head crackpot, dipshit thinker you are. God what a waste of my time reading your stupid theory. God back to school, you slacker fraud. Of course, there's no IQ test to write on AOL, so what the hell.
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9-22-2009 @ 7:55PM
Bobby said...
DougHwrite,,
do you alternate sucking Obama's & Michelle's toes?
How could this article possibly tee you off this bad unless you've given up your ability to think independently & criticism toward this administration's policies piss you off like this?
The article is relevant,, the funding was a forward failure & even a micro % of waste was too much.
Have a nice day...
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9-22-2009 @ 11:40PM
BillandTed said...
Wow, 15 Hummers (and the pic isn't even of the H3T, great editing). 15 Hummers scandalously ruining the cash for clunkers program - until you realize that they were getting the same MPG as some of the Ford F150s and other vehicles sold under the program.
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