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opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
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Thursday, June 11, 2009
House Trade-In Plan Guzzles Taxpayer Cash
Tough luck if you worked at one of the Chrysler dealerships shuttered by the federal government's mandated fire sale to Fiat.
But, looking on the bright side, the government is going to give you a heck of trade-in on your gas guzzler toward a new vehicle you can drive to the unemployment office.
The lower chamber of the board of directors for the auto industry — in their spare time they are members of the U.S. House of Representatives — voted almost 3-1 to OK the trade-in incentive.
One obvious goal of the cash-for-guzzlers proposal is to boost sales of new vehicles, just like the incentives private-sector manufacturers have offered. But, unlike those incentives, taxpayers will foot the bill for the incentives some of them use to put something new in the garage. It's kind of like the kids buying a new wallet for Father's Day with the credit card out of Dad's old but perfectly serviceable billfold.
Another goal of cash for guzzlers is to get new, more (but not much more) fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. But if the guzzlers just go on the used-car lot and then back on the road, they are still part of the gasoline-consumption, greenhouse gas problem.
Cash for guzzlers looks like a solution only if you're a member of an organization whose miles per billion of borrowed dollars would put a Hemi-powered dually Ram pickup to shame.
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