Less Than Half Of Cash For Clunkers Spending Actually Went To Dealers UPDATE: Corrected

Proof • September 10, 2009

Update: Whoops, I read the article below a little too fast. The $1.22 billion number is the amount of rebates paid back so far. The remaining isn’t entirely administrative costs but also the amount of rebates yet unpaid. According to this article, though, the administrative costs to date have been $144 per rebate. That’s a lot of money for a simple car rebate, and with 690,000 rebates to process we’re talking over $100 million to process rebates for a program that lasted weeks. Still not every efficient.
Your tax dollars, hard at work.

WASHINGTON – Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the government has approved $1.22 billion in reimbursements to car dealers for sales under the Cash for Clunkers program. …
The rebates led to more than 690,000 new car sales at a taxpayer cost of $2.88 billion. Auto dealers have said the Obama administration has been slow to pay them for the car incentives, which ended on Aug. 24.

$1.22 billion for the intended purpose. $1.66 billion for administering the money for the intended purpose.
Typical government program.
Let’s put these idiots in charge of health care!

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

And how exactly to you spend that much money running a little program like this?
Buzz

If you look close it almost says that…. no, no I guess it doesn’t say anything like that.

Well, nice try.
SigFan

I’m sure that when it all closes out, some additional amount of that $1.66 billion will make it to the dealers as it should. But they could of payed my consulting company $2 million and we would have administered the whole program for them and saved the taxpayer a big chunk of change. I wonder if they will ever release a final and accurate accounting of the program to the public?
robert108

This is typical of socialism, Rob, and why it is so wasteful. Most of the money in any program goes to administrative costs, not the actual running of the operation.
In govt schools, administrators are paid approximately twice the rate of teachers, and teach no students. The Dept of Education sucks up billions in taxpayer dollars, and educates no students.
This is why claims of govt “efficiency” are so laughable.
http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

Rob, I think the article makes fairly clear that $1.22 billion is only the amount which has been paid already, and that the other $1.6 billion is going to be paid in the future–they noted that “the rest would be paid by September 30.”

So the problem there is that the government is running things on a “net 45″ basis in an industry that’s probably used to working things on “net 15,” and in the process they’re destroying the profit margins of the dealers. You can’t pay interest on your line of credit forever and still make a decent profit.

And obviously, the same thing applies in medicine. You make doctors wait an extra month for compensation, or constantly work to (as Dear leader said he would) take the profit out of medicine, and there will be repercussions.
Buzz

Rob, I think the article makes fairly clear that $1.22 billion is only the amount which has been paid already, and that the other $1.6 billion is going to be paid in the future–they noted that “the rest would be paid by September 30.”

Oh no, he knows that, he cut that part out. He is not as stupid as most fat pricks. Close, but not quite.
Joe

Maybe only 40% of the applications have been paid so far and that’s why there’s 1.66 billion left? Maybe that’s why there’s a September 30 deadline?
Buzz

Yeah, I read the article to fast.

Seriously, it didn’t dawn on you that the overhead could not possibly be that much? Maybe I give you too much credit.
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

$144.00? What’s that, about 4% of the claim?

Sounds pretty efficient to me.
2Hotel9

And this is who leftards want in charge of medical services. What a bunch of fucking morons.
http://recreantright.wordpress.com/ Neal

Why should it occur to him that the overhead couldn’t “possibly be that much”? Here in Canada, 54 cents of every dollar goes to administering health care, not to actually, you know, treating patients.
http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

RCB, when all you’ve got to do is process a VIN, establish vehicle eligibility, and an affidavit that says the engine’s been destroyed and the vehicle is off to the steel mill, YES, $144 IS a lot. Processing cash for clunkers should be a LOT easier than processing medical claims.
http://www.moderndaypeasants.com/blog Dan

Here’s what I want to know. If we own all these companies as taxpayers when will my check be arriving? You know…I worked in the car business for 15 years and still have some great friends in the business some of who are owners and they laugh at the federal government for initiating this program. Don’t get me wrong they’re happy to take the money but really believe it’s a joke!
Buzz

But rant on. I do enjoy laughing at you.

Glad to enlighten your day.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

The program cost $2.88 billion.

$1.22 billion went to car dealers.

Can you not do math?
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Sounds pretty efficient to me.

Wouldn’t fly in the private sector.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

To be honest, Buzz, no matter what I do you’re going to accuse me of being an idiot and a liar simply because you disagree with my politics.

But rant on. I do enjoy laughing at you.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Yeah, I read the article to fast. I added a correction.

Still, $144 per processed claim is one hell of a lot of money.

Not exactly efficient.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

I’m sure that when it all closes out, some additional amount of that $1.66 billion will make it to the dealers as it should.

I’m not nearly so confident.

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Less Than Half Of Cash For Clunkers Spending Actually Went To Dealers UPDATE: Corrected

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