Have you been paying attention to the Cash for Clunkers debacle?
I’m sure you know they ran out of money. (By the way, check out Jimmy Bise’s AIP blog post on the matter. It’s great!)
Then there’s the fact that the program is hurting the salvage yards and might cause a shortage in spare parts in the future.
Now, it seems the top seller for the program isn’t an American car.
Sales under the U.S. government’s “cash for clunkers” auto incentive topped 180,000 with Toyota Motor Corp overtaking Ford Motor Co with the top-selling vehicle, officials said Wednesday.
To give you an idea of how funny this is, you really have to understand the true purpose of the Cash for Clunkers program. On its face, it looks like a program designed to get gas guzzling, CO2 spitting Gaia killers off the road and a few more green, electric mobile coffins on the road. However, if that were the case, why is the new Hummer part of the program? Is it because of it’s killer 16 mpg? Yeah, that’s probably it.
No, the real purpose of the program is to give some more payback to the UAW, who supported the program from the get go.
They couldn’t even do that right:
Vehicles made by the three largest U.S. automakers — General Motors Co., Ford and Chrysler Group LLC — comprised fewer than half of sales under the program through Aug. 1, according to the Transportation Department data obtained Aug. 3. The companies accounted for 47 percent of the clunkers transactions.
The data didn’t break out where the cars sold were manufactured. Some vehicles sold by foreign companies are manufactured in the U.S.
True, but those companies aren’t union.
Nice work, Dems.
comments