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Did Obama announce the end of used cars?

In his speech about the GM bankruptcy yesterday, President Barack Obama (from the New York Times) said:

And that’s why I’m calling on Congress to pass fleet modernization legislation that can provide a credit to consumers who turn in old cars and purchase cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars. (emphasis added)

Turn in old cars.  It’s long been a talking point of liberals and environmentalists that cars older than a given age should be removed from the highways.  The usual mantra goes “The government should buy all cars older than X and pay the owner $750.  Then the owner could go out and buy a newer, cleaner, more efficient car.” The advocates for this position either fail or refuse to understand that the owners will not be able to find a car to buy with their $750.  Basic economics.

President Obama used the words “turn in” not “trade in.”  He will give folks a credit – I suppose that means an income tax credit – for doing this.  This sounds like the used cars will go to the government and be removed from the market.  No more used cars.  You either buy an expensive putt-putt new car

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, or you go without. It appears that he’s set out to destroy the used car market.

Update – Welcome Instapundit and Charming, Just Charming readers.   And a hat tip to Chicago Boyz for the link to a post showing the Brits have already adopted such a scheme.

{ 123 comments… add one }
  • GUYK June 2, 2009, 11:58 am

    This two bit hustler has no conception of the real world. He has been spoon fed socialism by his handlers for decades and now wants to force feed socialism to the public. But first he is gonna have to do something about all those rednecks who cling to their guns and religion,huh?

  • Lily June 2, 2009, 1:45 pm

    With whose money? WITH WHOSE MONEY? This guy thinks it all belongs to him to do with whatever he wants. And he seems to think it will never run out.

    I blame the idiots who have elected him.

  • TobB June 2, 2009, 1:45 pm

    So which is worse for the environment…using a slightly higher MPG car, or creating a new car from raw materials to replace the old car that got a slightly higher-than-average MPG?

    I’d say using what you’ve got as long as you can is the more environmental friendly choice, it’s just not as glamorous.

    I guess it doesn’t help that not buying new cars doesn’t float GM new business.

  • Mark Buehner June 2, 2009, 1:46 pm

    How many people driving 750$ cars pay any income tax? Very, very few, consider 50% of the country doesn’t pay income tax. This program is a bust before it even starts.

  • tim maguire June 2, 2009, 1:48 pm

    How much you want to bet that two years after this program starts, we find out those “turned in” cars are sitting in a huge pile, their tires on fire and their various fluids leaking into the water supply while the bureacracy charged with managing the program is spending the money on hookers and private jets?

  • Kelly June 2, 2009, 1:48 pm

    My husband has a 2005 Silverado, I have a 2008 Chrysler 300. So we’re suppose to trade in the silverado for a smart car to tow our boat and trailer? I’m suppose to trade in my 300 for some small, death trap? I think not. Mr. Obama does not live in the same world I inhabit. He lives in some kind of green, fantasy world.

  • MarkJ June 2, 2009, 1:53 pm

    Obama is obviously as stupid as he is incompetent. If he thinks he can force people to give up their muscle cars and vintage wheels–especially for a measly “tax credit”–he’s begging for another American Revolution. Car owners would sooner burn down the White House and dump Obama’s skinny rear on a slow boat to France than give up their wheels.

    Jeez Louise, are there no bounds to Lord Zero’s idiocy and arrogance?

  • Peg C. June 2, 2009, 1:54 pm

    Our family is working out our car purchasing strategy but I promise you nothing this thug Crip in the WH says will impact us except contrarily. I will NOT be buying any Obamamobiles under any circumstances (and we women make the auto purchasing decisions in families, even if it is to “permit” hubbies to have their toys, which I have done numerous times), and we will not be purchasing anything that contributes to any government or union pensions period (taxes we have no control over excepted, until the Revolution).

    This thug cretin is not allowed on our TV or radio so about the only place we actually see the garbage he’s spewing is online. Words cannot describe how insulted and revolted we are by him.

  • Podunk June 2, 2009, 1:56 pm

    It’s not quite as bad as all that. The current bill is offering $4,000 to $5000 for cars older than 8 or 10 years (can’t remember exactly), depending on how bad their mileage is. The car being ‘turned in’ has to get 19 mpg or fewer based on EPA ratings, so this won’t affect the used small car market directly. The new car has to get some minimum mpg as well. And you have to have the car registered for at least a year leading up to the ‘turn in’ date, so you can’t just go buy a clunker and trade it in. Obviously you would be foolish to turn in a car if you couldn’t afford a new one even with the incentive, or if it was worth more than the incentive they’re giving you.

    So in answer to your question, no, he didn’t announce the end of used cars. The effects will be fairly limited. That’s not to say that the program is a great idea, but at least we can debate it on the merits of what it actually is.

    Wait, did I just say that on a blog? Who am I kidding?

  • ObamaRocksYourWorld June 2, 2009, 1:56 pm

    You write as if you will have a choice….you don’t. What he says you will do, you will do. Elections have consequences, and it’s time you people realized that your Hummer Party couldn’t go on forever.

  • KLH June 2, 2009, 1:57 pm

    California has been trying this for years. We’re bankrupt now, and we still have a bunch of old cars. I’ll keep mine just to piss him off.

  • Pat June 2, 2009, 1:59 pm

    Won’t kill used car market. If the trade in value is greater than $750, the car will be traded in.

    And how is “cleaner, more efficient” defined? Say cars built before 1990 (I have a 1986 Volvo) are defined as old. Can I turn in my Volvo and purchase a 1991 Volvo? This would, of course, increase the value of existing cars.

  • RedDog June 2, 2009, 2:00 pm

    hell, I’ll be clinging to my V-8 too!

  • Chris Wysocki June 2, 2009, 2:02 pm

    But of course you don’t need a used car. Obama and the Socialists have a Utopian vision for America. They are planning to bring you trains! Bullet trains between cities. Light Rail to downtown. With Urban Transit Villages organized around the stations so you can walk or bike to anywhere you need to go.

    If you really, really need to drive somewhere, there will be a guy on the corner who rents SmartCars by the hour.

    Private car ownership will go the way of the Dodo bird. Government Motors won’t be a car company; they’ll be a Pension Plan that happens to make cars designed by bureaucrats for eco-zealots. It won’t matter if they sell any of those cars, the important thing is that the UAW members remain fat and happy.

  • Passerby June 2, 2009, 2:02 pm

    Hey, why not? The “Turn in your guns for some money” program worked like gang-busters.

    Not, you know, actual gang-busters, but lofty rhetorical ones.

  • HatlessHessian June 2, 2009, 2:03 pm

    Cars are another piece of property that the progressive government must eradicate from long-term holding. Too many, including the black and latino cultures, identify with cars and feel that their ownership provides for a sense of identity. This must be eliminated.

    Homes and land are nothing more than rental property, given the state of property taxes. This has been a major victory for progressives in the past century. The next major asset owned that must be controlled to wield a firm stick over the people is their auto. Break their capacity to feel control and ownership, deprive them of their choice and force them to ride in a tiny, generic green-car and further resistance is taken from them.

    Little by little, you crush their spirit and break their will to fight.

  • John June 2, 2009, 2:03 pm

    I don’t see anywhere in the quote where Obama says that the federal government will give a credit for the purchase of a new car. Only that owners of older cars should turn theirs in.

  • The Pathetic Earthling June 2, 2009, 2:04 pm

    Of all the Rush songs I ever thought might possibly be prophetic, “Red Barchetta” was not among them.

  • Billll June 2, 2009, 2:05 pm

    The speech sounds a lot like Feinsteins line:”Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ’em in.”

    Start with cars, work your way to guns.

  • Ron Nord June 2, 2009, 2:09 pm

    Well, this socialist is doing it a little different than his friend Castor. Castro just did away with the new cars and kept the old cars. Everyone in the new car business went into the cane fields and then the used car business boomed and when you go to Cuba you can see how that turned out. Everyone thinks that Castro is a genius for thinking of this. Then Castro went in to the Health Care field and did away with a lot of things that were really not needed and he has been hailed for his ingenuity there also; soon we will have the same type of medical facilities like Cuba. How did we ever get by with out having a community organizer, organizing us. He’s just wonderful, he probably has plans to run for office like Castro and his pal Chavez and I’ll vote for him for the next 50 years.

  • drjohn June 2, 2009, 2:10 pm

    Having to buy a new car from either GM or Chrysler will be as optional as paying Federal taxes

  • Texas Jack June 2, 2009, 2:11 pm

    And then there are those of us bitter clingers who also cling to our old cars. I have two British cars over 36 years old, and restored with great care. The White House idiot has about as much chance of taking those as he does my two 60 year old military rifles.

  • bobby b June 2, 2009, 2:13 pm

    In ObamaLand, doctors work for free, Hamas becomes known primarily for their twice-a-year road-cleaning projects throughout Israel, each unit of carbon is assigned a serial number and tracked (unobtrusively), Al Gore slims down through rowing his houseboat, and the right-thinking, progressive, moderately wealthy Friends of B.O. silently zip around the city’s open and (at last) convenient streets in their $135,000 Priuses and hybrid Hummers, giving head-nods of serious but coolly distant approval to the lumpen unemployed lined up for blocks to get on the one light rail train that BO bought for the city.

  • Trouble June 2, 2009, 2:13 pm

    If this Harlot of Babylon gets his way, there doubtless will be very specific daffynitions as to what constitutes a “car”.

    Look for the market in used half-tracks and farm tractors to skyrocket.

  • Jonathan June 2, 2009, 2:16 pm

    I think you overstate the case. The idea is somewhat idiotic and will be ineffective, but should provide an incentive for a few rednecks to clear the chickens our of the ’53 Whatever they have on the lawn by the oak tree and push it to the nearest redemption center. No one with an actual functioning car will take him up on his offer for obvious economic reasons.

    I feel for the chickens, though.

  • Daylight June 2, 2009, 2:21 pm

    This redneck is also going to cling to his used car. “They can have my used car when they pry it from my cold dead ass”.

  • Matt Groom June 2, 2009, 2:22 pm

    I wouldn’t be opposed to them mandating that old cars be turned in, because I would simply refuse to do it. They might refuse to register my car, but then I’d get to drive it without registration fees. If I’m not allowed to have it, I’m not required to pay insurance on it. I don’t need a driver’s license to drive a vehicle which is illegal to possess. Woe be unto the tow truck driver who tries to tow my illegal conveyance. He will find how far righteous illegality goes. It’s not like the police would harass me, there’d be thousands of illicit vehicles just like mine on every stretch of highway from sea to shining sea.

    Let them try it.

  • ElvenPhoenix June 2, 2009, 2:22 pm

    We have three used vehicles – a ’93 and 2 ’95’s. All three are wonderful vehicles that rarely require anything other than routine maintenance – and there is NO car payment! I never want to have a car payment again, which means any vehicle I own will be used. And the three we currently own will have to be pried from our cold dead fingers, unless the engine dies.

    Also, here in Texas the State already offers up to a $3,500 credit towards the purchase of a new(er) vehicle if you turn in your older car.

    http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/air/mobilesource/vim/driveclean.html

    I don’t know how many people use it.

  • Barry 0351 June 2, 2009, 2:24 pm

    Sounds like a Heinlein novel I once read where the idea was to scrap any unsold cars even if new to make new cars in order to keep the economy going I think it was “Door into Summer”.

  • Inbredredneck June 2, 2009, 2:28 pm

    They can have my Ford Festivas whey they pry them from my cold, dead fingers!

    Rob J

  • What I Think June 2, 2009, 2:30 pm

    I think Obama is on to something here! Everybody starts with a living wage, say $100k a year, taxed at 100%. Every time we do something responsible, recycling our old flashlight batteries say, we’ll receive a tax credit, good for purchasing other responsible things such as union-made clothing or hydrogen gas. Families could buy an entire week’s worth of food by bringing their own cloth bags to the supermarket.

  • CristiBee June 2, 2009, 2:30 pm

    Completely agree. Articles like this just get you thinking. Thank you for posting.

  • ArthurDent June 2, 2009, 2:31 pm

    There are precedents in many other countries. I’m familiar with Spain, where the government has at different times offered tax credits worth hundreds of dollars in the purchase of a new car if you can prove that the old car has been decommissioned. Nobody forces anybody to do anything, and clearly, if the tax credit is $750 and your car is worth $2000 you are not going to go for this (unless you get additional incentives from the dealer, as they often do to extend the appeal of the program).

    Plans like this are only designed to remove some old clunkers from the road, and are not perverse socialistic schemes (although libertarian would do well to be distrustful of any such ideas). You can think of it as similar to the energy tax credits that the US already offers.

    When the plan was first introduced in Spain after a protracted economic crisis, with many cars on the road that were 20+ years old, it was extremely successful and may have saved the domestic car industry. They are trying it again during the current downturn but it’s having zero effect. The circumstances have changed dramatically, obviously, the country being wealthier than before and the number of old cars much smaller. I suspect that the effect in the US may be too small to notice.

  • CristiBee June 2, 2009, 2:32 pm

    I publish a site that’s all about minimal consumerism and simply buying less to save money. Obama asking for people to turn in their old cars is pretty much the same message. I appreciate that he is concerned with consumerism and how to start facing in a new direction.

  • Bailey Yankee June 2, 2009, 2:34 pm

    The ramifications of this are immense. We own several antiques and I can assure you they don’t meet any kind of EPA standards Obama might set. Further, they are worth currently more than $750 apiece, that’s for sure. If he’s going to eminent domain our vehicles then he has to give fair value at least, or the equivalent in a new vehicle. $750????? BAH.

  • submandave June 2, 2009, 2:36 pm

    Discouragement of the used car market has long been used in places like Japan to prop up and sustain the auto industry. I would not be surprised to see this administration use turn-in and regressive tax and emission recertification programs to “return” viability to Chrysler and GM.

  • Yessir! June 2, 2009, 2:37 pm

    He is just going to take YOUR gun and YOUR used car!!

  • Tcobb June 2, 2009, 2:37 pm

    Such a move would just be the first step. “Progressives” don’t like the masses to have personal transportation anyway, they want us all to use mass transit. Its what allowed the guinea pigs to flee attempts at social engineering in the past such as school busing.

  • Barry Hussein Carter June 2, 2009, 2:38 pm

    Has anyone seen Jimmy Carter recently?

  • VWmama June 2, 2009, 2:40 pm

    He will have to pry my cute little red VW bug convertible from my cold dead hands.

  • Frank June 2, 2009, 2:43 pm

    What does he plan to do with the “turned in” cars? Scrap them? At the taxpayer’s expense?

  • Swen Swenson June 2, 2009, 2:49 pm

    They can have my ’73 F-250 Highboy 4×4 when they pry my cold dead fingers off the steering wheel..

  • Pierre June 2, 2009, 2:49 pm

    What about all of us who love our “Old” cars? You can have my 75 Corvette when you pry my weapons out of my cold dead hands.

  • Holdfast June 2, 2009, 2:53 pm

    F U Obambi – I will be driving my big, gas-guzzling, foreign SUV into the ground over the next 20 years.

  • John Bigenwald June 2, 2009, 2:53 pm

    Every “proposal” has that whiff of earnest late night dorm room conversation.

    I graduated 20+ years ago, but I heard versions of all these as an undergrad — usually preceded with “Why can’t we just…”

  • KGK June 2, 2009, 2:57 pm

    Yeah, Obama hit the nail on the head when he cited the type of American who clings to guns and religion. The stupidest, most ignorant, racist douche nozzles in the whole country. Throw in paranoid delusional since you think the man is going to force you to give up your used cars.

  • Gretchen June 2, 2009, 2:59 pm

    It is my understanding that dealers make more profit on used cars than new, so Obama is once again hurting car dealers. Mechanics and makers of auto parts also profit off older models. Has anyone done a study about the offset in energy used in manufacturing vs. running a car? I suppose if less people can afford cars more people will use public transportation. It goes without saying people like Pelosi and Obama will still be free to jet around the country (for dates, fund raising or to sign legislation) or be driven in motorcades of SUVs. Does this sound like Soviet Russia to anyone?

  • Drider June 2, 2009, 2:59 pm

    Does this idiot just spew out whatever fantasy pops into his mind.
    Hey, I know that Obi one is well on to his way to destroying our capitalist system, he has done a wonderful job in doing so without even having to bother Congress with the details or heavy lifting so far but if he thinks people are going to turn in their cars for a credit of 750 dollars to buy a golf cart doors he is just plain nuts.

  • Blacque Jacques Shellacque June 2, 2009, 2:59 pm

    Message to Obie: Sorry, but I’m perfectly happy with my early 90’s 4Runner with over 200k on the odo. It’s not going anywhere. If he wants it to run “cleaner”, he can give me money to have it re-engined, but I’m not “turning it in” to buy anything new.

  • ExDemocrat June 2, 2009, 3:00 pm

    I like my 10-year-old Chevy Blazer SUV. I’m not about to ‘turn it in’ for one of those putt-putt, unsafe micro-cars. I don’t mind paying for the gas my SUV guzzles. It holds all my stuff, and I feel safe driving around in it. I thought this was America, the land of free choice. If I want one of those putt-putt cars, I’ll buy one. But until then, I want to have the FREEDOM to make my own choice, based on my needs and my wishes. I really HATE this %$&*%@# nanny government!!!!

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