YOUR COMMENTS

The real cost of Cash4Clunkers won't be realized until the next generation who has to pay for it.

The biggest flaw is that like Edmunds stated, the Government is paying 24k for a 14k car.

I go to GMC.com and I see an artificial "MSRP" price of 24k.

I then go to repofinder.com and see that a repossessed one sells for 14k.

It's insanity and your taxes are supporting it.
- Mike Dane, Sunapee

Also, to make matters worse, aren't these $4000 amounts taxable income for the car buyer? So not only do they have car payments, they have to pay higher taxes at the end of the year. Unbelievable.
- Tom, Strongsville

How's that saying go???

A billion here and a billion there... soon you're talking about real money.

I'm happy for everyone that damned the future and took money borrowed by the government to improve their own quality of life.

Keep 'gettin yours' while the gettin is still good right...

Stop Government Greed. Use your own money for your own things.
- John II, Manchester

This is exactly what you get with a State run economy...like they have in Japan, China, etc. You have nameless mid-level bureaucrats who come up with these programs...primarily for political reasons, not economic reasons...and they turn out to cost a ton of money without much in return. Govt should have a limited role, small enough in scope that the bureaucrats can actually accomplish something.
- JohnR, Michigan

America no longer has "market driven conditions" moving it forward as necessary. It now has "government directed planning" which seeks to maintain conditions as they were 3 years ago -- without taking into consideration that, *gasp*, conditions C-H-A-N-G-E. Of all the administrations there ever could be in office of the USoA, shouldn't THIS administration be aware of that particular word?
- Ray Pendergast, Newport News VA ( by way of Salem NH )

Just check the numbers in the story, please.

$226 billion? Please....
$74 billion? Where does this come from?

The total number of vehicles purchased under the program was something under 700,000. With $4,000 rebate toward each that amounts to about $2.8 billion.

While I agree the program mostly resulted in summer purchases that would have occurred later in the year, the size of the program was not what you state in part of the editorial.

Your third number $3 billion is, I believe, correct.
- Doug, Chichester

Sorry to break it to you Union Leader, but a shift in sales from this fall and winter to last summer hasn't "exactly" happened yet...
- Dan, Manchester

Besides the outrageous price tag to tax payers, here's the real tragedy: people who owned title to their perfectly-operable "clunkers" are now strapped with monthly payments. Meanwhile, they're losing their jobs in an economy that is anything but "recovering." So, like the subprime mortgage scam, the Clunkers program lured people into what could be another potential credit trap for them. Programs such as Clunkers are scam jobs designed to make people believe the government is (1) doing something for them and (2) giving them something. That this harebrained scheme proved to be yet another ephemeral shot-in-the arm for the economy renders Clunkers an even a bigger lemon--and the White House an even bigger joke.
- Susie, Horseshoe Bay, TX (NH native)

and your alternative is...? With an economic situation this big I expect the government to TRY things, and I expect some of those attempts to FAIL. To sit back and criticize minuscule points and not offer your own solutions isn't an editorial, it's whining.
- J Paige, Manchester

Paul in Sunapee, check out the list of the "clunkers" destroyed by the mandate (they had to destroy the engines and make them unusuable).

They include such rare cars as one of the slightly over 500 Buick Grand Nationals, an Aston-Martin DB7, and a Bentley Continental. Also, 131 Corvettes, and well into the hundreds each of other sought-after exotic cars like early-gen RX7's, 1990's BMWs, and Supras, including last-gen.

This will drive up the cost of replacement parts for owners of those vehicles. Try to save money by having, say, an older BMW 535 from the 1990's, which don't cost much to run? They just destroyed hundreds. Thanks again, government!
- Mike R., Bedford

Kim, please enlighten us.

Paul in Sunapee, the timing also places the decision after the local and state elections across the nation this week and next. More proof that he cares more about protecting the Dem party than he does our troops or national security.
- Paul, Manchester

Colossal economic failure is the right phrase -- for the legacy of the Bush years. Where were you when Bush (with GOP and Democrat compliance) was spending us into oblivion and dismantling the safeguards that should have prevented the inevitable economic collapse? Your short, selective memory is hypocritical.
- Skip M, Ossipee

Math is your friend. There is more upside than down, ask several thousand people in the industry. In the grand scheme of things it was a bargain of a program too. I kow, I know...Obama did it so you have to trash it. I get it. Well, maybe he will fail spectacularly and drag this country down with him, and then you and your kind will be happy. Then you can prop up another draft dodging son of wealth and privilege to ruin this country as well as the last one did.
- MIke, Concord

3.5% GDP for third quater
- Keith, Sandown

As always our current leadership ignored those saying it would not work and ignored the citizens who did not want billions of tax dollars spent on this scheme. Now that the reality of their arrogance is coming to light I can hear the words being spoken how the Republicans did not offer any suggestions.

The people of this country need to stop electing based on emotional rhetoric and start electing people with actual experience that can back up their words and understand tax and spend are not qualifications for running an economy. Once we created millionaires like no other nation on earth, now we create poor and teach our young achievement is a bad.
- Deb, Derry

Lets just call it Corp welfare. Without the clunkers Detroit is off the map and the country goes into major depression. Still holding onto a clunker but I hope they bring this program back. Those Toyota Camrys sure look nice.
- Jake, Manchester

Kim from Rockingham Cty:

What the editorial staff need even more is an education in Economics.
- Joe, Manch-Vegas

Yet another case of the Broken Window Fallacy.
- Mike Ruff, Manchester

Editorial staff needs to check the math...
- Kim, Rockingham Cty

Did you notice that once this scheme reduced inventories, prices went up? Thanks Washington hacks. Now how about extorting extra pay from my employer, for me. So I'll be able to afford the higher prices, you created!
- Steve, Raymond

Unfortunately, cash for clunkers is just another portion of the failing economic policies of the Paul Hodes Congress and White House.

Take a look around. Foreclosures line the streets of many neighborhoods; businesses have closed; people are stacked in unemployment lines looking for help... what you see are the fruits of the progressive democrat agenda.

Today's editorial is a reminder that government can't fix a problem that was created by...government.
- pm, Milford

What's more, even the money that bought cars that wouldn't have been bought otherwise, was spendable money that would have been spent on something other than cars. The sellers of those other things might have taken their commissions and--bought a new car! In fact, it isn't lack of funds, it's lack of confidence in the future under activist government.

ANY government program to "target" benefits becomes something for con artists to try to game. You need not study excuse-makers on welfare; just look at who's parking in most of the handicapped spaces at the store.
- Spike, Brentwood NH

A matter of Trust and Money. The Democrats are so busy spending, they do not care if it works or not. Money and Democrats are not a good partnership at all, they cannot be trusted with it. They are gleefully spending us all into oblivion.
- Bob, Salem

Additionally, what was the lost value of the used cars that were destroyed? Some kid could have learned a thing or two working on them; or (even greener!) they could have been salvaged for used parts.

Sure, they were "clunkers"--but what's wrong with letting market forces rather than political fiat--determine their worth & fate of these old vehicles?

We know what the truth is: a better name for this program (and the entire Obama economic plan) is "Taxpayer Cash for the Auto Workers Union--and any other Obama Loyalist Interest Group"

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Just heard the news that (months after Gen. McChrystal's request for reinforcements) Obama isn't expected to make a decision on his "Afganistan/Pakistan Strategic Flimflam" until after his upcoming Asia trip. I don't suppose its because he won't have an opinion until after our Chinese creditors tell him what it is???
- Paul, Sunapee