carsYou know I'm not much of an Obama fan... Well, this CARS program is something I was looking forward to. I was torn within, should I look into it further? Should I write it up as wastefull government spending? Is it just another hand-out??? I mean it, I was really torn up about it..I drive an older vehicle.
My 1994 Ford e-150 has over 300k miles, needs transmision work, needs suspension work, needs to stop dripping oil on everyones driveway, needs to get better gas mileage. It gets 11.5 mpg on a good day.
My wife had an older Caravan which she was happy to drive, until the transmission went out the second time. If it had not broke so soon, perhaps we would have taken it for a trade in when this CARS program opened up. Instead, we traded it for a not so old Windstar. Still, not a new car, but perhaps better in many ways. Some things we like, some things we don't like.
So, we have a payment on a vehicle for the next two years or so. (maybe three, I don't recall.) And we can't afford another payment on anything, never mind a car payment.
So, I get stuck. I could take my old van for a trade in on a brand new vehicle, get $4500 off, and also a dealer cash-match, and still end up owing perhaps $10k, leaving me with a payment for several years. And, while I would love to take advantage of this, I would not be able to feed my kids.
I would be happy to trade my old van for something maybe 5 years old which easily gets at least 5 mpg more, which is one of the guidelines for the klunker upgrade. Should a used gcar dealer throw in a cash-match or rebate of any kind, I could be left owing less that $2k on a newer pick-up truck, or smaller van, which I actually need, since I both work in construction and own my own small home repair business on the side.
My point is, that when this CARS program was first thought of, why didn't they consider people like me? In my house, we strive to keep current on bills and payments, my wife goes to college in hopes of furthering her employment and a better sallary, I work a full time job (though hours have been cut to 32/wk), and I do side jobs. We can't afford to get a new car, no matter what the cash-match and government rebate is.
Perhaps if my 1994 e-150 with the troubled transmission and poor handling could hold out until we pay off my wifes mini-van, in another 2 years, and if it lasts at least untill it has 350k miles, and the government realizes that it forgot to help people like me, in my boat, and any program they might come up with permits me to get a used car that is less than (say) 7 years old, maybe I' could be a fan of a government hand out.
Until then, Mr. Obama and the other liberals have forgotten a group of people... We can't afford a new car payment because we try to avoid government hand outs, and we try not to live on credit that digs us deeper into the hole your handouts are going to push our kids into. We work hard for what little we have, and we work even harder to keep the things we worked so hard to get... Our bank accounts are empty and your CARS handout is a carrot dangled on the string of credit before our noses, leading us into the valley of the shadow of death. If we go after the CARS, we could forfeight our homes and our futures, and the only things we have. But, hey... they're just things, right?
