Government Sponsored Waste

That's pretty much what "Cash for Clunkers" is creating:

Nick Clites, who is in charge of used cars for the dealership, was prepping a 1988 BMW 535IS, with 214,000 miles on the odometer, for its death. He drained the oil, then donned a silky blue protective suit, goggles and gloves and poured a sodium silicate solution into the engine. He revved the car, and within a few seconds, the solution hardened into a glass-like substance, the engine seized up and the car was dead.

So here is one question: With the program now on shaky ground, even with a new infusion of money, what consumer and what dealer will risk rendering an engine irretrievably unusable?

Well, as it turns out, a lot of them are doing so, because unless the dealers can prove to the government that they have killed the engines and scrapped the cars, the government will not reimburse them for the $3,500 or $4,500 discount that they have given the customer on a new, more efficient vehicle.

Barry Magnus, the general manager of DCH Paramus Honda, told us he was owed more than $80,000, and he wondered if he would ever see it. The government has said it would take 10 days to reimburse the dealers, but that was before the program apparently ran out of money and devolved into chaos Thursday night.

Today, dealers are frantically trying to move the old trade-ins to the scrap heap so that they can get reimbursement before the money tap shuts off. Until they can certify that the car has been decommissioned, they cannot submit their paperwork to be repaid.

“Oh my God, what a mess today,” Sally Ann Maggio, who co-owns Hackensack Auto Wreckers, also in New Jersey, said on Friday. We visited her car-crushing business on Thursday. She didn’t think much of the program to begin with.

Ms. Maggio said she generally makes her profit by reselling the engines, the most valuable parts of the cars she takes, but that’s not posible with the cars coming to her because of the cash for clunkers program, because they have been rendered unusable. That cuts down the salvage value of the cars — and the incentive for salvage yards and wreckers to take them — to almost nothing, considering the time and energy they must spend in going to the dealer, towing back the dead cars, removing the engines, crushing the bodies and shipping them to a metal scrap shredder and recycler.

And, of course, the process reduces the supply of used engines for people who can’t afford to buy a new car and come to the salvage yard looking to fix up old ones.

In any case, Ms. Maggio said, dealers are “hitting the panic button” today.

“We have been overwhelmed with phone calls from the dealerships,” she said. They have already killed the engines, and want her to pick up the heaps.

And on hearing the news that the government might be pumping more money into the program, she said, they are stepping up the process. “They’re worried that the new money might last only two days,” Ms. Maggio said. “But until it’s scrapped and the paperwork is done, it’s not a done deal,” she said. “They’re driving me crazy.”

This may come as a surprise to Obama and his green team, but there are a lot of cars being traded in that could have been good vehicles for people who can't afford a new car. Yes, they might get a little bit worse mileage, but now those cars are a complete waste, making used cars and used engines more scarce.

I know they think they're saving the earth, but all they're doing is making it tougher for the folks who really need the most help.

By the way, before you go on the government website for this program, you better watch this.