1. Will new car sales _remain_ up after this?

2. Or will there be a move by some libs and Dems never to be an “after this” but to keep this program going, as well as introduce other, similar programs for other kinds of reasons, to affect auto sales?

3. And what if this is extended to other parts of the private sector and people's lives? (Will that be the “lesson” the Dems and their supporters “learn” from the example of this program, to date?)

At least cars are simpler and there's less for them to screw up, though you know that the success (both real and claimed-but-only-imagined-or-made-up) of this program will encourage the Dems (reeling from the failure of their overreach in health care, after rushing stupidly with other bad legislation earlier) to screw this program up more.

Look first and foremost for them to misread not only the public intrest, but also their ability to be “choosier” about fuel efficiency in the future with this program. That's likely where they'll fail first.

(I wonder if more intelligent Dems won't try being fancier in other, related ways, like inversely paying customers to switch vehicles based on the new vehicle's weight or more intelligently, GVWR. The lower the weight [GWVR], the greater the payment. It's the “-bate” [subsidy] half of a fee-bate scheme…)

Yes, it was, at least to normal people. Only the _diseased_ saw it as, and _especially_ as, a social engineering experiment to induce people to switch to vehicles with higher fuel efficiency, instead. (The fuel-efficiency ridiculousness of some in Washington, particularly those who were upset that the fuel efficiency requirements were not stringent or demanding enough, is disgusting as well as diseased.)

23.5 MPG is the standard value to use when gauging fuel economy, good versus poor, as well as the benchmark to use when going beyond what the feds are doing now with this exchange program, to do what some of us have long feared the worst in Washington, implement not only arbitrary taxes on the weight of vehicles, or engine displacement or output, but implement a “fee-bate” program of taxes on politically incorrect (less efficient) vehicles that are given as subsidies to purchases of politically correct (more efficient) vehicles. There is a real-world test of those seeking such lunacy that involves the figure of 23.5 MPG, the real-world standard for fuel efficiency and gauging it. Such activist fools would typically demand an efficiency of new or future motor vehicles far in excess, even multiples of, this normal figure.

1. There's no doubt that there is a lot of public interest in participating in this program. Of course, what would it be like if dealers did these incentives on their own and if auto prices were lower in general than they have been for a number of years.

2. There is no government “magic” at work here, despite what some Dems may rush to claim; in fact, there is evidence that the feds (aided by a liberal media, complicit as usual with libs and Dems in Washington) may be hyping the “success” figures to date.

3. Dealers have been concerned about the paperwork requirements as well as reliability of payment from the federal government. At least one dealer was in the news for withholding distribution of vehicles to its customers until it was reasonably guaranteed payment from the federal government (keeping its “promise”).

4. Some have already noted that the destruction of the older vehicles is counterproductive, as the engines and power trains have significant value and the loss of these can hurt the parts industry.

5. The fuel efficiency requirements involved in this program are a ridiculous impediment to it as well as the source and object of additional idiocy from the Democrats (including Dem fake Republicans like Olympia Snowe as well as loonies like the California crowd, who openly express an insistence on tougher fuel efficiency requirements). The main interest and should-be promotion objective is to get people to buy new vehicles of all kinds, to support the automobile _business_ without regard to stupid liberal politics. The fuel efficiency conditions in this program have been the central defect from the start with this program.

6. Many people nevertheless anticipate higher fuel efficiency requirements, because they believe this program has been a success (this is true at least insofar as public interest in replacing older vehicles is concerned; the program has exposed or revealed this interest in addition to their willingness to take other people's money), and so the feds can be “choosy” in the future and raise their (all-too-likely-to-be-ridiculous) fuel efficiency demands. The figure of 22 MPG is currently associated with the program; in order not only to be realistic but to intelligently address what is truly the “real world” benchmark for the transition point from lower to higher fuel efficiency, the figure should be raised, if it is to be raised, to (and only to) 23.5 MPG. (This is the world standard as well as acknowledged as the threshold of good or at least not-poor efficiency, hence should be the value used in any newer, “tougher” exchange program — it is 10.0 km per liter, for those outside the USA who are curious.)

I think even a Democrat could succeed in this business.

But, like all liberal programs, the proof is in the execution. Just as they would screw up healthcare, Democrats can’t manage a program for a few hundred thousand cars.

Henry
Blogger
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.info
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts..info

New car sales better go up after all this.

Well said RemembrNovember, I can't wait for the Joe Btfsplk look a likes (jwest, DLS, superdestroyer) to explain to us again how Obama's Stimulus Programs has no chance of succeeding and how the Democrats are (316-109 house vote, hum) driving (pun intended) the country to bankruptcy.