A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.
The Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel economy requirements. A total of $3 billion was allotted for those rebates.
The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com.
That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.
Further, the clunker program only helped those who could already afford a new car and destroyed untold thousands of perfectly serviceable used cars that could have been used by folks who couldn't afford new-car prices.
That amounts to destroyed wealth. Add the cost to taxpayers of $24,000 per car and the taxpayers are really getting robbed.
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