The auto industry and government have floated a few ideas to jumpstart car sales.
Among these are subsidizing low cost car loans. Another is to pay car companies a piece of the purchase price of each new car so The Big Three can drop prices and still profit.
The latest plan is to pay people for very old cars if they will buy a new one.
According to CNNMoney, "Under a bill introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D.-Calif., owners of older cars would get vouchers worth thousands of dollars toward the purchase of newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles." The program would help Detroit and get old vehicles, which tend to throw off more pollution than new ones, off the road. The plan is green and it stimulates the economy.
What no one has suggested is where all the old cars will go. The government will probably have to create several large landfills for dumping the auto and trucks. Over time they can be turned into Superfund sites so the government can spend hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning them up.
Looked at that way, buying old cars may be much more expensive than it seems and may cost the taxpayers mote than anyone imagined.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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