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Hi Folks,
In the words of Sony and Cher, “The Beat Goes On…” For some time now I have heard and read the rants of people who are upset about the Cash for Clunkers program. I am beginning to get a little tired of the constant whining. I’m about to the point of just saying it is what it is so deal with it. Most of the complaining I hear is from people who have never and will never do anything about issues that affect the public as a whole.
First and just for the record, I’ll make my position on this clear. I don’t agree with all the aspects of the program. I do think it has good points as well as bad points. However, I have learned that a lot of people who are complaining don’t really know a lot about the program. From what I am hearing and reading, most people simply think they are totally crushing and ruining the vehicles. The major complaint here is that valuable parts are simply being wasted. In some cases this is true and I tend to agree that destroying the engine and simply crushing it just for the sake of the program is wrong. As a matter of fact, it isn’t even environmentally correct. The real problem here is that there is and probably will be no effort made on the part of legislators or the public in general to fix the program.
Originally the whole point of the program was to get gas guzzlers off the road and to stimulate the American auto industry. Unfortunately, as in the case of most things the government gets their hands into, they managed to stray far from the original point and intention. If this program is to continue, it could be fixed. First there is no sane reason for having hundreds of pages of detailed regulatory crap. This could be a simple program.
Most states if not all of them have something similar to the Junk title category we have here in Ohio. That idea could have been played upon in this program by creating a federal Clunker Trade database or even simpler, make it a category in the nationwide database of VIN’s that already exists for use by law enforcement. When a dealer takes in a clunker they could simply enter the vehicle’s VIN into the online database they already have access to as implemented by the current program. To satisfy the requirements of the individual states the titles could be rendered automatically as junk or clunker titles by the same process. At this point only licensed auto wrecking and scrap businesses could purchase the vehicles from a federal database bidding list. There is no need to go through the wanton destruction of ruining the engine if this process is handled as I have just suggested.
There is a widespread popular opinion that all Clunker Vehicles have to be crushed. This IS NOT TRUE… Many of them are already going to places like Pull-A-Part , where they are being sold off as individual parts. When Pull-A-Part decides that they have sold off most of all the individual parts they crush the remains for scrap. This is a good thing for those of us that like to go the junkyards and harvest usable parts. I have noticed that most of the vehicles in Pull-A-Part yards have the hoods propped open and there are almost always parts removed from the engine that allow the rain and contaminates to get into the engine. That means that the engine is pretty well ruined anyway and is only good for taking parts off of. Even though the Clunker Program requires the engine be ruined by running an abrasive slurry through the engine, there are still a fair amount of usable parts to be harvested. As I previously stated, I don’t agree with this process, but it’s not the big deal people are making of it.
Let’s do the math… as of now, a total of three-billion dollars have been allotted to this program. Let’s put this in perspective. Three-billion will buy one and one half B2 bombers or a down payment on an aircraft carrier. The clunker payment amounts to $3,500 to $4,500 per vehicle. That works out to an average of $4,000.00 per vehicle. That means that if all the money that has so far been allotted is used there will be approximately 750,000 Clunker trade-ins. Here in the US we are currently averaging 251 million, (that’s 251,000,000) registered cars and small trucks. For the US domestic auto manufacturing industry to survive they need to make about 14 million vehicles a year. There are literally Hundreds of Thousands of junkyards in the United States and they all will be wanting their piece of the pie so far as these Clunkers are concerned. I am pretty sure it won’t be long before these vehicles start showing up in the yards and they will probably be a pretty good source of parts for those of us that like getting out there and looking for that sort of stuff. When you do the math, it soon becomes evident that there will be little or no negative impact on the status quo due to this program.
On a positive note… I hear people complaining about it being another expensive government spending program. This is just another one the whiners have targeted. I find it strange that they have no problem with pouring vast amounts of money every month into places like Iraq as well as countless other places that we will NEVER see any return from. WAKE UP FOLKS!!! This is one of the very few programs that we the people and the nation get something back for our money.
I guess you could say that this in my rant, and if you did you would be right. I just get sick and tired of people going off half cocked and spouting a lot of misinformed opinions. I think it is a good idea for people to discuss these kinds of issues, but it usually does more harm than good when they don’t bother to do any investigative research and just go by what they have heard from some biased source that probably is not accurate.
If people are truly concerned about these issues they need to get off their duffs and start being a part of the solution. It is now easier than ever to contact the legislative representatives in Congress and make you desires known. I can sit down at the computer and go online to virtually notify every member of the House and the Senate and any of thousands of issues they deal with. Just about everybody has online access these days. One thing is for sure, if you don’t make your points known to them, they aren’t going to consider them. Believe it or not, you can even call the White House and they have staffers that will discuss any reasonable issue with you. The same goes for any Congressmen or Senator’s office.
OK, I've said my piece on this. Now, as usual I invite any of all of you to contribute. I only ask that you be reasonable and informed. Biased opinions based mainly on feelings without substantial facts to back them up will not keep this discussion on an intelligent level. I am sure that there are more factors involved that could be covered here.
Here is a link to a PDF file entailing the "Clunkers Bill": http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/cash-for-clunkers-final-rule.pdf This thing is 136 pages long, so be prepaired to spend some time reading it as it IS NOT a fast read.
Later Folks...
