The more I hear about the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, the grumpier I get about it.We were without one of our two cars for most of the summer after Kris was involved in a car accident back in June. No one was hurt – but our beloved Subaru Forrester didn’t fare so well. It took nearly six weeks before it was eventually declared totaled.
We finally replaced it last week. We did plenty of research and worked pretty hard to get the best deal we could get for what our insurance company was offering us. In the end we settled for a 2003 Pontiac Vibe that we’re both pretty pleased with.
We could have gotten a newer, nicer car. But we were adamant that we didn’t want to take on a car loan we weren’t planning on having (the Subaru and my Honda Civic are paid off). You see we’re kind of funny that way – we don’t like debt.
So we paid in cash for the best car we could afford without any help from anyone else.
Why, then, are my tax dollars being used to help the rest of the United States buy a new car?
This isn’t just sour grapes because we didn’t qualify for the program (the Subaru certainly wasn’t in drivable condition, which the “clunkers” need to be). But even if it did, we’d still prefer to go used and not have that extra loan payment.
I wonder how many people jumping on the Cash for Clunkers bandwagon will be stuck with a loan payment they’d be better off without. Isn’t that kind of how we got into this mess in the first place?
Once again, money is taken from those of us who behave responsibly to prop up everyone else. Ugh.