Cash for Clunkers hurt the Poor

When attempting to buy a good used car in or around Detroit, indeed perhaps anywhere in the nation, and one thing will surely jump out at you: the high prices of used cars. At Auto Round Up on Detroit's west side, a 12 year old vehicle with 225,000 miles was going for $2,400! At A and G Auto Sales on the east side, a 1997 Mercury with 150,000 miles and a badly damaged rear bumper was priced at $1,695. Similar tales abound, but the bottom line is this: in the Motor City, good used cars at good prices are tough to find.

We have our friend President Barack Obama to thank for that. You see, the Cash for Clunkers program decimated the used car market. Every car turned in for the program had to be destroyed; they could not be refurbished or resold. The reason given was to get older, gas guzzling vehicles off the road.

But were they all really gas hogs? One particular area heavily hit are the famed minivans, family cars not especially known to burn excessive petrol or horribly pollute the air. Trying to find a decently priced one less than even 15 years old is a challenge: a 1995 Caravan at a car lot on Van Dyke in Warren, Michigan was listed at $1600. This is a vehicle 16 model years old.

So who benefited from the program? Middle class Americans who could have afforded a new car had they wanted anyway, and unionized auto workers who vote for the Democratic Party and our President. The poorer classes, the ones the left tell us so often how much they care about, meanwhile, are struggling to get something within their budgets. Even the used car dealers are struggling because they can't get cars for inventory at prices their clientele can afford.

The federal government should have never been in the auto sales field anyway, and part of the reason is in the unintended consequences of such behavior as illustrated by the dry yet inflated used car market. Cash for Clunkers hurts the very segment of society which Democrats claim to love so much. Yet a moment's simple thought would have prevent the harm. A basic understanding of supply and demand would have shown the folly of the program as written.

But appealing to the people who vote them en masse and are also more likely give the Democratic Party cash and effort means more to the left than rational government policy. Yet the poor? The ones the Democrats so much for?

We suppose that they may eat cake.