Wednesday, August 5

Cash for Our Clunker

So we (Hubby and I) decided to turn in our trusty 1995 Pontiac TransPort (his fav car of all time) to the cash for clunkers program.

Why not? It has 230,000 miles on it, occasionally runs its own battery down for no apparent reason and the windshield wipers work only in sunshine. Since we transport our Downs grandchild to a special school 25 miles away four days a week, we do need something newer and safer. We didn't plan to replace it. Ever. At least not until it decided to quit.

We are not enamored of new cars. We buy something we like and as long as it runs, it's good. We don't have egos tied up in our autos! (I loved my 1964 Corvair and drove it over 300,000 miles until it gave its last gasp and died.)

But our local auto dealer had some great deals on new cars and Cash for Clunkers simply made it possible for us to comfortably afford to replace the old one. Not even with a 2009, however. We bought a 2008.

We don't have our new car yet; we're waiting to be sure the dealer gets his money. But we're quite relieved to anticipate taking our grandson to school in a much, much safer vehicle.

HOWEVER, this program isn't going to affect global warming one tiny little smidgen. To do that Congress needs a SunSpot Regulation program as well as a Cap and Seal Volcano program. Controlling the wobble of the earth in its orbit might help, too, but stopping ALL emissions from fuel-guzzling vehicles world-wide wouldn't do it. Too many scientists who have controlled their research and experiments (and that includes NOT putting temperature gauges near the exhaust from jet aircraft) have data that is far more reliable than the politically-oriented "scientists" data.

What many people don't seem to realize is that as the economy slowed, too many people had to wait to replace cars, so the auto industry suffered. With this program everyone benefits -- the auto industry (and not just government-owned GM) and people get safer cars. Seems to me that once this is an accomplished fact, it's just dumb to not take advantage of it.

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