Congress wants our cars!!!!

[scirious@hotmail.com (Brian Haygood)]

Not a Hoax.  I found it on the doccet at www.senate.gov  by doing a search
for "retire motor vehicles" in the 107th congress's calendar.

Now I DON'T see that they are REQUIRING ALL old cars to be scrapped, so they
aren't coming after us.  I do think it is redicuous and will lead to
financial hardship for a lot of misguided people, as well as a shortage of
parts for older cars.  Car salesmen and ad execs spend their whole careers
trying to convince people that old cars are bad and that they can easily
afford new ones.  My experience as a car salesman shows me that MANY MANY
people who think they can afford new cars in the lond term can not.  Giving
them an extra bit of downpayment will just make them more likely to get
themselves locked in to high interest long-term payments they can't get out
of.  I saw it happen all the time.  Now, I'm not saying we have to prevent
people from doing this, but I don't want to pay my tax dollars to exacerbate
the problem.  The fact that perfectly good cars would be destroyed (and only
good ones, if you read the bill) is the main problem.  Keep in mind that
somewhere in the background are people suggesting that this will stimulate
the economy by creating more jobs for car builders.  It will only do so by
increasing the tax burden on everyone, while making GM, Ford and the like
richer.  This is no public service.

Also, I think the sample letters are flawed in suggesting that many of these
cars are extra cars and not used often.  Those of us who have extra cars are
almost exclusively car enthusiasts who would never scrap a runner anyway.
I'm sure the bulk of the cars turned in will be old, beat up daily drivers.
We are talking about 15 year old cars, that's 1987 or older.   If these cars
are a serious polution problem, then they will be busted by smoke belcher
laws in most places anyway.  Saving a mile-per-gallon is simply not worth
much.  As noted earlier, and given that engines in new cars are vastly more
powerful (on average) and not often much more efficient than older cars, I
just don't see the point.  Pile on the fuel lost to old cars traded for new
SUV's and its a losing battle all the way around.


Now the car has to be running and registered to be scrapped, so that also
narrows its impact - down to the most unreasonable of cases.  My biggest
gripe is that this would be a big chunk of my tax dollars being used to
destroy something I probably want preserved.  Also consider the fact that
the average new car is probably no more efficient than  new ones by virtue
of the fact that so many new "cars" are SUV's.  Why do I get the feeling
that if I read all of the bills in the senate I would be increasingly
depressed and dissapointed at what these morons are considering.


Suggestion... Write your congressman, but read the entire thing first.  If
they get a swarm of letters saying "you can't take my car from me!!!" the
letters will have no impact because that's not what is happening here.  The
sample letters sent earlier refer to things like "complete" destruction of
all older cars.  That's not my understanding of the bill, though I have yet
to read it all (I will).  This is a cash incentive for voluntary scrapping,
if I understand it correctly.

Heres are some excerpts copied from that site:

                    (1) requires that all passenger automobiles and
light-duty trucks turned in be scrapped;

    (2) requires that all passenger automobiles and light-duty trucks turned
in be currently registered in the State in order to be eligible;

    (3) requires that all passenger automobiles and light-duty trucks turned
in be operational at the time that they are turned in;

    (4) restricts automobile owners (except not-for-profit organizations)
from turning in more than one passenger automobile and one light-duty truck
in a 12-month period;

    (5) provides an appropriate payment to the person recycling the scrapped
passenger
automobile or light-duty truck for each turned-in passenger automobile or
light-duty truck;


    (6) provides a minimum payment to the automobile owner for each
passenger automobile and light-duty truck turned in; and

    (7) provides, in addition to the payment under paragraph (6), an
additional credit that may be redeemed by the owner of the turned-in
passenger automobile or light-duty truck at the time of purchase of new
fuel-efficient automobile.