Green Stimulus Idea – ‘Cash for Clunkers’

With the economy in need of some help, the people in need of some hope and a whole lot of pollutin’ vehicles on the road, one New York Times columnist has a ‘modest proposal’ that could go a long way toward all three: ‘Cash for Clunkers’. This idea would put into place a variety of programs in which the government buys up some of the oldest, most polluting vehicles and scraps them.

From The New York Times:

Here’s an example of how a Cash for Clunkers program might work. The government would post buying prices, perhaps set at a 20 percent premium over something like Kelley Blue Book prices, for cars and trucks above a certain age (say, 15 years) and below a certain maximum value (perhaps $5,000). A special premium might even be offered for the worst gas guzzlers and the worst polluters. An income ceiling for sellers might also be imposed — say, family income below $60,000 a year — to make sure the money goes to lower-income households.

People who sell their clunkers would receive government checks, perhaps paid to them at the motor vehicle bureau office where they turn in their old vehicles. They would be free to spend this money as they see fit, whether on a new car or truck or some other form of transportation — or anything else. To ensure that the program really pulls clunkers off the roads, only vehicles that had been registered and driven for, say, the past year would be eligible.

The government can either sell the cars it buys to licensed recyclers for scrap, or refit them with new emissions controls and resell them. But the government must not ship the cars to poor countries, where they would continue to belch pollutants.

Such a program would distribute some money to low-income people (since the rich rarely own clunkers), giving them a little extra cash to feed into the economy. The auto industry would benefit as well, since people would be trading up.

There are similar local plans already in place, but what really limits them is lack of money, which is where the need for stimulus comes in. The NYT article goes into details of how the program would work and how much it would cost. We love the idea of these sorts of government programs – achieving so many goals at once.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Todd D Jones

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