Scrapping the Worst of the Worst, Right?
The Cash For Clunkers program represented a new wave of American thinking: let’s get the bottom tail of the fuel-efficient autos distribution off the road. Scrap the environmentally unfriendly clunkers. Although the program did get the auto inventory moving, did it really scrap the worst of the worst?
This is a sample of 6, but it seems to me that the car most worthy of scrapping did not get scrapped. Was it the objective of Congress to scrap the marginal clunkers? Well, if it was, then they succeeded (again, in this sample size of 6). According to CNNMoney, here is what the proud owner of 1983 GMC Vandura (11 mpg), pictured above, said about his/her experience:
My smoke-belching, fuel-guzzling diesel van doesn’t qualify for Cash for Clunkers. I have insurance, current license plates, a safety-inspection sticker… but my van is one year too old to qualify. Is my 1983 van a classic, Congress?
Maybe they consider it too classy to be scrapped and think it should still be running up and down the highways. Well, that’s what I do with it now, and I expect this old thing will be alive and kickin’ for decades to come.
I don’t know, seems a little off to me.
Originally published at News N Economics and reproduced here with the author’s permission.
