Aug 4, 2009

The "Cash For Clunkers" Lemon

bureaucracy
Let's just get down to business and pick apart this well-intentioned but ill-conceived attempt for stimulus:
One of the stipulations for eligibility is that you have to prove that the clunker you are trading in was CONTINUOUSLY insured going back a full year from the day of the trade.

What brain dead bureaucrat came up with that?!?!?!

This means that unless the clunker is your only car, which you've had for years, you don't qualify. Here is a short incomplete list of people who fit this profile:
pickup truck enthusiasts, roadsters' enthusiasts, boat owners, hobby mechanics, people on welfare, retired people, weekend drivers, people who oppose having a car payment, people with bad credit... All these either are not interested in trading their old car, or can not afford to buy a new car or both. A lot of poor people who would gladly trade their clunker, simply can't afford a new car payment, sales tax, new tags, and full coverage insurance, which is mandatory when financing is used to buy a new car.

People who don't qualify include:
1. Economically pressed people, who got the clunker 11 months ago from their aunt, who had it sitting in the garage uninsured for the past year.
2. Spouses, who had to go back to work because of the economic crash last fall, and had to start driving the clunker to work. Those clunkers were not on the road a year ago. Furthermore, remember how before the economic crash last Fall the clunkers values were driven down by the high gas prices? A lot of people simply sat on the clunkers, because they could not sell them for a fair price and could not afford to drive them, and now are driving them full time once again, since the gas prices are bearable.
3. Folks who got laid off and had to take their car off the road for a couple of months to save the expenses they could not afford. Now, if they have found another job and are driving the clunker once again, they are being punished for trying to make the ends meet.
4. People who missed insurance payment for couple of months, because they were in a hospital, work assignment, or whatever, and now have 30 or 60 day gap in their 15 year continuous insurance.
5. Deployed military personnel.

Way to go, ingenious bureaucrats!

bureaucracy

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