The Ford Focus freaking ROCKS! (I have two, and I LOVE them!)

Back on topic… jchem has a good point. Considering the job loss, that could be a major problem. I'm hoping that the increased spending from this and the recent boost to Wall Street and the increase to minimum wages (not to mention the back to school season spending is under way) that we may start to see the job number improve. Of course, it's far too early to tell, and it may take some time for the increased spending to translate into hiring to meet increased demand. The real question is whether or not these factors will hold long enough for that to take place and for the spiral to start going back up again. Consumer spending is the key.

Though I do wonder how this particular program, considering sales tax and liscense fees among other things, might affect the actual cost of the program.

Good point. Possible future variants of the program (be it fixed or variable incentive amounts that may be involved) could be based on relative as well as absolute old-vs.-new fuel efficiency differences and improvements.

There are a number of problems with this. I'm also curious if the Senate will change it.

Meanwhile, it can't be all bad, if it spawns more Lincoln Mercury ads featuring Jill Wagner, at least.

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“As DLS mentioned yesterday, the requirements are not stringent enough. Personally, I think anything less that 30mpg should not be allowed. The problem is that 30mpg might cut out a number of American cars.”

For the record, I said that _any_ fuel requirements (for either the old or the new car) are wrong, that they wrongly introduce environmentalist and social-engineering elements into what should be free of them, that the program should simply reward replacements of _all_ old vehicles by _any_ new vehicle. (This is the most straightforward thing to do with such a replacement program specifically undertaken to reduce total vehicle emissions, too.)

But I did say that the world standard (a de facto basis of measurement _and_ a real-world gauge of small personal vehicles of _all_ kinds in the USA and Canada as well as in differently-governed Europe and Japan) for mileage is 23.5 MPG, and that that level is what I'd like to see used for any upward revision from 22 MPG.

Yes, it's not very high, but most vehicles' mileage (of vehicles most people prefer, notably) is not that much higher. The 23.5 MPG figure (10.0 km per liter) is not only real-world appropriate, but practical.

Even though clouded or tainted by politics, it's an interesting subject. For example, the 23.5 MPG figure (10.0 km per liter) could be used as an efficiency index (in reality, decameters per liter, too), benchmark-efficiency value of 100, and, say, only those vehicles whose efficiency “index” values were at a specific higher value (125, 150) could be legally called “economy” or “fuel-saving” or “fuel-efficient” vehicles and qualify for various special (politically favored) treatments.

And there's no need to wait for that, necessarily.

Also, the “-bate” portion (subsidy; reward) of a fee-bate scheme could be implemented right away by the feds with this program (Cash for Clunkers), by offering _progressive_ subsidies — the higher the mileage, the greater the subsidy. (An initial attempt at the “fee-” part of the scheme could be done by inverting it, not taxing the less-efficient older vehicle, but inverting this to a progressive subsity or voucher on the old vehicle as well, offering a larger credit or voucher amount the lower the efficiency of the old vehicle being disposed of. I.e., you'd provide fuel-efficiency-seeking progressive incentives with old _and_ new vehicles.)

More-complicated is inferior normally to simpler with this and any other program, but you can see how the program could be changed from using a single value to a new (raised) efficiency value _and_ applying a varying amount of incentive toward the old and new vehicle to encourage relinquishing the less efficient vehicles and seeking the more efficient vehicles (more than might be the case if not so “incentivized”), as much as possible.

OK, I'll take off the social engineering and environmental-activist “hat” now and let others try it on now.

In April 2006, the cost of the F-22 was assessed by the Government Accountability Office to be $361 million per aircraft. This cost reflects the F-22 total program cost, divided by the number of fighters the Air Force is programmed to buy; and which has so far invested $28 billion in the Raptor's research, development and testing. That money, referred to as a “sunk cost”, is already spent and is separate from money used for future decision-making, including procuring a copy of the jet. The Unit Procurement Cost was estimated at $177.6 million in 2006 based on a production run of 181 airframes.[17] This unit cost will decrease if total production is higher. This cost includes $3.233 billion already spent on research and development by 2006.[18]