Federal Funding of State Scrappage Programs are Back!!

["John Harvey" <harvey5691@xxxxxxx>]

Scrappage programs are BAD economics, and BAD policy. All they do is
increase the number of buyers for running junk, thereby increasing the price
of running junk.  When you increase the base price of running junk, you also
increase the price of stepping up a level or two above total but running
junk.  This forces those who need to drive running junk to keep their junk
running by any means possible rather than replacing is with less junky
running junk.
      The proper solution is to promote the sale of new cars, thereby
increasing the total supply of better used cars all down the line, until it
is more economical to replace running junk with a better car than to cobble
it together to run another day, by any means possible.
     Scrappage program increase the power of the bureaucrats, who create
rules, paperwork, and jobs for themselves.  I have never seen a scrapage
program that would accept a car that couldn't drive to the facility under
it's own power.  This eliminates the car that probably should be scrapped
but since it needs repair to be sold, the owner simply repairs it and drives
it some more, rather than towing it to its final destination.
     Like most ideas of the radical political environmentalists, once you
sober up a little and think about it, it is a bad idea all around.