Cash For Clunkers Fraud

History is going to judge the clunkers scheme harshly.
While the economy is going into meltdown it'll be seen as a desperate attempt to move new autos off the overflowing lots, bribing people ill equipped to assume new debt to do so. It was conceived as another frantic bandaid to stop the hemorrhage and prop up Big Auto, spending billions of tax dollars to give you four or so extra miles to the gallon, if that. Some deal.

The scam mandates that used cars and trucks traded in have to have the engines destroyed, starving wrecking yards of needed parts to fix existing vehicles. Trying to keep a good running older model on the road has thus been rendered harder to do. Lower income people already hurting in this depression will now hurt even more because now's the time to buy used cars rather than new ones. Charities that relied on car donations are now shit out of luck. Plus older vehicles are far easier to fix by yourself than new ones, was this just a simple crappy and unfortunate byproduct of this scheme?

In any event just weeks after it started the program may have run it's course. I can't see how more than an initial surge in sales could happen because people simply don't have money or credit. "Consumer interest in the federal "cash for clunkers" car program is waning, according to Edmunds.com, the Santa Monica-based auto information site."

Good riddance to this idiocy if it's on the way out. It was exactly the wrong thing to do at the right time to create new and worse problems. And if all the reasons mentioned weren't enough, there's evidence that people who are using the program are actually buying vehicles with worse mileage.
But if you're looking for numbers rating the efficacy of this fraud, don't hold your breath:

$3 billion buys not-so-green vehicles

"WASHINGTON – Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the nation's top car salesman in recent weeks, has cited the Obama administration's best-seller list of mostly smaller, fuel-saving cars like the Ford Focus to describe the success of the Cash for Clunkers rebate program.
But what LaHood and other administration officials usually don't mention is that some trucks and sport-utility vehicles that get less than 20 miles per gallon, like the Ford F-150 truck and one version of the Cadillac SRX Crossover, also are being purchased with the new government subsidies. Both are bulky vehicles weighing more than 6,000 pounds when loaded that boast at least 248 horsepower.
Just how many consumers used the federal rebates to buy these larger, not-so-green vehicles is unclear. The Obama administration has declined so far to release detailed records of purchases under the program being compiled by the Transportation Department, listing every clunker deal requesting rebates."