Another Clunker Out of the Dumpster
If you take a drive down East State Street you can’t miss the giant dumpsters overflowing with used vehicles, or so-called clunkers. This has beco
me most car dealerships’ way of advertising the government’s new Cash for Clunkers economy stimulus program. The plan was set into action in order to boost auto sales and reduce the carbon footprint on our precious environment. At first glance the stimulus program seems heaven sent for an economy experiencing recession and an environment in dire need of help. Although the program is having a great impact on our economy at the moment, things may not be as attractive for the future. Even the claims about helping the environment by removing clunkers from the streets are somewhat farfetched in the scheme of things.
Cash for Clunkers seems like a dream come true for consumers, automakers, and environmentalists alike. The program offers car owners up to 4,500 for trading in cars that have a fuel efficiency rating less than 18 miles per gallon. In order to receive the trade bonus a car getting at least 22 miles per gallon must be purchased. According to New York Times’ writer David Sanger, “That is not so impressive considering that car makers are required today to have an average fleet efficiency of 25 miles per gallon.” (Sanger 1). This means that the government has lowered standards in order to pay consumers money in hope of them spending more money. Even one of President Obama’s administration officials stated, while off the record, “What we ended up with is a 
program in which you trade in old clunkers for new clunkers” (2). If paying people to throw out something that works fine to provoke more spending is the main goal, are we going to see similar programs? Perhaps a program to trade old dogs for spunky new pups is in our future: Dollars for Done Dogs!
One of the main objectives for Cash for Clunkers is to improve our slumped economy. Since the program has brought a major increase in car sales, and auto-related jobs all over the country it seems as though the plan is panning out stunningly. So stunningly in fact that the first $1 billion dollars used to fund the rebate system did not last long. In fact the government approved an additional $2 billion to help the program last longer. Even though the stimulus program has had great success in its initial weeks there are questions as to whether the success will last. Despite rocketing car sales of about 120,000 so far (Feinstein 1), Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of car research website Edmunds.com does not seem to think so. He states that “even without the program, people trade in about 60,000 clunkers every month, so Cash for Clunkers – it’s just giving those people free money.” (Block 1). Free money is sure to stimulate any economy, yet the money isn’t exactly free since the billions taken to fund the program will be made up for with future generation’s tax dollars.
Another acclaimed benefit of the Cash for Clunkers program was to aid the environment by getting old gas guzzling, carbon emitting cars off the roads. This claim is not completely false, yet the carbon footprint of a new car would take years of driving before making the statement true. The production of a new vehicle alone is a huge factor. William Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke, figured out that the footprint is “somewhere between 3 and, say 12 tons of CO2 are produced for every car you make.” (Borenstein 1). These carbon emiss
ions are due to the electricity and fuel, which is required to construct and ship every new vehicle. Calculations by The Associated Press show the program will “reduce carbon dioxide emissions by just under 700,000 tons a year” (1). This is in fact a fraction of the total emissions. To give a perspective of what kind of impact this has on our environment; “the U.S. spewed last year: nearly 6.4 billion tons (and that was down from previous years)” (1). Although this program is a decent stab at carbon emissions, in the eyes of Economist Allen Sanderson the money could have been better spent in regards to the environment. He questions the act stating, “for $3 billion, could we do something for the environment that would [be] better than what we’re doing? And I think absolutely.” (Block 1). Although Sanderson is certainly not the only scholar taking this position it seems that the government disagrees considering “The $2 billion is not new money since it is being transferred from an existing renewable energy program.” (O’Connor & Kady 1). This is quite disturbing since a cleaner, more reliable source of energy would seem to be more important than selling automobiles; apparently that is not the case.
It appears that all those dumpsters full of clunkers are serving purpose for the moment; at least for our economy at the present, certainly not for our environment though. Although the impact on the economy has been positive, the prosperity of the program may not be so long lasting. The program has failed to meet its goals set towards cleaning up carbon emissions from cars. Considering one of the main goals of the program was to clean up carbon emissions from cars one has to question the justifiability of the money that is being spent. Only time will tell how well this stimulus program can help our economy, however as of now it seems that in many ways this program is just another clunker.
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