Every article says it was bad, but why? And was there any good to it?
In: Economics
Cash for clunkers was probably one of the most successful government programs since the New Deal. They simultaneously took off the road a bunch of unsafe and inefficient cars while boosting the American car industry.
The issue is that, because the government was paying people to junk their car, they couldn’t have people “double dip” and sell privately. The solution for this was to permanently disable the cars by running stuff like sand through the engine. Unfortunately that took a lot of beater classic cars off the road, but these were likely never going to be in great shape again.
People who write articles about cash for clunkers 15 years later care more about the small number of rare cars that got junked than the broader context of the economy and vehicle safety, which makes sense.
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