Yesterday the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association announced that hundreds of their dealers had pulled out of the Cash for Clunkers program because they couldn’t get paid.
“Dealers have shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in rebates to consumers since the program began six weeks ago,” he said. But “only a very small percentage of that money has been paid back, leaving these small-business owners too cash-strapped to continue offering consumers the discounts.”
Today Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that due to it’s great success the Cash for Clunkers program will end early next week.
“We’ve seen an overwhelming and overnight success and so much so that we’ve reached the point where we need to wind this program down,” a senior administration official said on Thursday.
Really? From the same article.
The announcement comes a day after a group representing some 20,000 new car dealers in the United States warned that dealers who accept additional sales under the program face a growing risk that they may not be paid back the rebates they have already given customers.
Yet another Government program to line up with such gems as Medicare and the Postal System.
I know! Let’s give them the entire health care system!!
Gaius at BCB on this as well.
I’m keeping my clunker. The Ford F150 Custom stays where it is. It’s reliable, paid for and I can fix what goes wrong with it. Having only 115k miles on it doesn’t hurt either!