Biddlecomb Column: This program is what I would call a clunker

Why do I have the “Sanford & Son” theme song in my head every time the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program is discussed?

Maybe it’s because Fred and Lamont Sanford are about the only ones who will benefit from such a public policy lemon.

I’m sure that this auto recycling legislation started out as a good idea, but some ideas should remain just that. Let’s face it, creating better tuna salad by feeding tuna fish a diet of mayonnaise and
pickles sounds like a good idea, but I don’t want Congress spending $1 billion of our tax dollars to make it happen.

The concept behind the Cash for Clunkers program is to have people turn in their gas guzzling, obsolete cars for something new with higher fuel mileage. Car owners are encouraged to turn in a car that
gets 18 miles per gallon or less in exchange for something more fuel efficient.

Based on a formula (that was no doubt devised by MIT slide rule technicians) the government will give the car owner a voucher worth between $3,500 and $4,500 depending on the fuel efficiency of the
cars involved.

It’s the government’s version of paying 10 cents for the return of an empty soda bottle.

Maybe I could have used this piece of legislation when I was a bachelor reporter working for the Potomac News 10 years ago. At the time I was driving a 1987 Ford Tempo that was approaching the
quarter million mile mark. That’s impressive if you drive a Mercedes, but shameful if you drive a Ford economy car.

As I attempted to trade it in at Springfield Toyota when my wife and I purchased a new Corolla, the salesman laughed hysterically before giving me the number to Melwood.

There, folks, lies the rub. Cash for Clunkers requires the car to be worth less than $4,500. The car owner also forfeits any trade-in value since the car will be scrapped (taken to Fred Sanford’s salvage
yard) instead of resold at New Deal Used Cars.

The car must also be less than 25 years old and continuously insured for at least a year prior to the new purchase.

There was a reason I was driving that old clunker a decade ago. I would have been hard-pressed to pay for a $15,000, fuel efficient vehicle on a journalists income even with the $3,500 to $4,500 federal
discount.

Then there’s the added costs of insurance. Full coverage on a clunker is dwarfed by full coverage on a 2009 or 2010 model.

And don’t forget our local tax on personal property also known as the car tax. Even though the commonwealth eliminated 70 percent of this unpopular yearly tax, local personal property taxes can still be
quite expensive on a new car. My dad used to avoid the car tax by driving an old, Ford F-150 pickup truck. At one point, the county would have had to pay him had the truck’s value depreciated any more.

If someone trades in their clunker (worth less than $3,500) for a new car worth three or four times more, the personal property tax is sure to go skyward. Cash for Clunkers would not eliminate the sticker
shock, it would only postpone it until county residents are forced to pay their car tax bill in October.

Then there’s the fact that Congress passed the legislation before completing all the guidelines. In other words, they’re making this up as they go along. There were two reasons for this rush job. Car sales
peak in June and July. Also, the program was attached to a bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A vote against Cash for Clunkers was a vote against the troops. How compelling.

Congress placed a $1 billion ceiling (cheap compared to many of the farm subsidy bills) on the program and when that money is gone, that’s it. Unless, of course, they extend the program and continue
feeding more tax money to the beast. If that happens, the program will keep chugging along like all those “Sanford & Son” reruns.

I still can’t get that song out of my head.

Alfred Biddlecomb is the former editorial page editor of the Potomac News and Manassas Journal Messenger.