Cash For Clunkers
I thought C4C was a damn stupid idea. Environmentally speaking, my guess was that you'd have to save a truly improbable amount of gas to warrant destroying a perfectly good car--something which, remember, represents a vast investment of resources. So the difference in mpg between the clunker and its replacement, I guessed, would have to be improbably vast. Furthermore, it sounded to me like we were being asked, yet again, to bail out the rich and stupid. And if you were dumb enough to buy a gratuitous SUV, then you shouldn't ask me to spend my tax dollars helping you buy a sensible car.
But there's at least some reason to think the program was a success.
Ah, well, wrong again I guess, but happily so.
I thought C4C was a damn stupid idea. Environmentally speaking, my guess was that you'd have to save a truly improbable amount of gas to warrant destroying a perfectly good car--something which, remember, represents a vast investment of resources. So the difference in mpg between the clunker and its replacement, I guessed, would have to be improbably vast. Furthermore, it sounded to me like we were being asked, yet again, to bail out the rich and stupid. And if you were dumb enough to buy a gratuitous SUV, then you shouldn't ask me to spend my tax dollars helping you buy a sensible car.
But there's at least some reason to think the program was a success.
Ah, well, wrong again I guess, but happily so.
posted by Winston Smith at
2:14 PM
1 Comments:
I think you were probably right the first time, and the comments below Drum's article offer good couterarguments, like the clunkers most used [therefore most polluting] are owned by the poor, who still weren't able to buy a new car despite a $4500 gift from Uncle Sam.
Perhaps the best counterargument is your own
destroying a perfectly good car--something which, remember, represents a vast investment of resources...
...which isn't figured into Drum's argument.
Basically, any program that gives away $3 billion in pursuit of even a marginal gain can somehow be called a "success." But that's just the teaser---now we shall attempt it with trillions.
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