"Hit & Run": Cash for Clunkers

The Government's new Cash for Clunkers program, where car owners can get up to $4,500 for trading in their old cars for new, more fuel-efficient ones, has been suffering from a lot of criticism lately. According to her article "Cash for Clunkers Deemed Futile," fellow UT student, Emily, explains the recent obstacles the infant program has been facing. 

 Emily writes, "The program arose from truly charitable intentions.... [but] now the government has suspended the program..."  She explains that while the government's solution to a suffering economy and declining air quality is admirable (the program is designed to stimulate the economy with auto sales as well as decrease auto emissions by encouraging Americans to trade in fuel inefficient vehicles), Cash for Clunkers is, like most government-run programs, just not up to snuff.  After barely a month of Cash for Clunkers making headlines, the program is already %20 over budget: a whopping $221 million total.  While on Friday Emily noted that the program has been temporarily suspended, according to NPR correspondent Scott Simon's Saturday broadcast of Weekend Edition, "...[T]he House voted to pump $2 billion in emergency funds into the program. That money would come from the economic stimulus package." 

I agree with Emily--what the new government program is attempting is commendable, but as of yet, it hasn't really done much to pull the nation out of this economic hole.  

But I'm a little more hopeful than she is. At a glance the program seems like a godsend: up our waning environmental standards while stimulating a faltering economy. But whether the government's Cash for Clunkers is innately doomed exactly because it is a government program, I'm not so sure.  I want to believe in this program because it's such a positive thing for America--like the nation has been waiting around for something hopeful, and here Cash for Clunkers showed up on TV screens around the country giving Americans an opportunity to help out in a really plausible way.  Nevertheless, the Obama's approval ratings are down from 61% to 54%--the lowest they've been since his presidency. 

Though many people predict the inevitable doom of Cash for Clunkers, I hope the program finds a way to stay afloat and achieve the much-needed changes it was designed to. But if it continues to falter, I also hope the government--as per Emily's suggestion--can admit its failure, cut the program and its funding, and find another solution.