Did Cash For Clunkers Work?

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45% of the cash for clunkers purchases went to the big 3 US auto makers. Many of the "foreign" automakers that benefited - Toyota, Nissan, honda - also make their cars right here in the USA. I don't mind my tax dollars going for this if it means a few extra auto workers get to keep their jobs (better than paying them unemployment) and a few of my neighbors get more fuel efficient cars.

Marj of CO 8:18PM October 13, 2009

For starters, the thrust of this program was environmental. Get fuel inefficient vehicles off the road and replace them with gas - sippers. As it turns out, most of the new cars purchased where from Japanese automakers and were produced in Japan as well. As far as dislocated logic goes, the program is over. There will be no"annual infusion. Good luck, comrades.

Sun Shiny Day of OR 4:48PM September 04, 2009

The answer would be no!

Rick of CA 12:41AM August 30, 2009

Cash for clunkers was a clunker. Why? It redistributed wealth, which BHO was all for, as we know...but did it redistribute it from wealthy people to poor people? Probably not. The folks who bought these Toyotas and Hondas had to qualify for loans that are still very hard to come by. And, though the government will tell you that it pulled inefficient and "dirty" cars off the road in favor of "clean" ones, it created a new and different ennironmental hazard by forcing dealers to make the engines inoperable. Will the market be strong or weak for the remaining parts for the "clunkers" or will this program depress the prices of those parts?
BHO borrowed this idea from...you guessed it...the Europeans! Yep, the same ones who free terrorists and can't meet their own self-imposed greenhouse emissions targets (save for the French because they get 80% of their electricity from nuclear fuel).
It seems to me that Geithner and Obama just have no clue about market equilibrium and basic microeconomic theory. Pity, as Hank Paulson was not much better. Anybody with a brain out there ready to run for office? I didn't think so...

Scott of DE 11:38PM August 23, 2009

So what happens when Cash for Clunkers is over? No more artificial market inducing capital is 'exchangining hands'. So, all the people that these companies have brought back will have to be let go again.
You don't help the economy by giving specific companies or specific industrys gov't money. If Obama really intended on helping the economy instead of trying to scratching the backs of his cronies, he would cut all tax brackets by 5%. But, he is not trying to help the economy. He is pandering to the environmentalist on this faux global warming & he is pandering to the labor unions. I thought Bush was bad. I seems mr. 'Yes We Can' can do the same things that the Dem's claim Bush of doing (Obama's just making his pandering more obvious).
But, thanks BO for helping to fund Stem cell research. The Republicans are in the stone ages on that one.

William Mosley of GA 6:48PM August 22, 2009

Did cash for Clunkers work? If setting up an artificial market place and redistributing the public's tax dollar on a single politically favored industry was the intent, well then yes, it worked.
On a personal note. No, I don't mind that that the government chooses to reward my neighbor, giving him $4500 because 10 years ago he bought a gas hog. I don't qualify for the $4500 gift from the tax payer, because 10 years ago I bought a fuel efficient car. No I don't mind at all.

Col D. Brewski of CA 9:54AM August 22, 2009

Breaking windows to create jobs for glaziers is destroying asset value and has no logical place in the argument.
Cash For Clunkers created an immediate increase of money exchanging hands. If multiplied 9 times as $3 bln flows through the economy it's a potential $27B shot in the arm in 1 month, or $324B annually. Probably the best use of stimulus money yet!

Stan of WA 12:46PM August 21, 2009