Program is a clunker

I just checked into the feds’ “cash for clunkers” program.

Let’s see:

1. Your current vehicle must not get more than 18 miles per gallon. This makes sense. Let’s up the mpg of the nation’s autos and lower our demand for oil.

2. Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old. Wait a minute. So these older cars that typically have less favorable environmental performance don’t qualify?

3. It must have been continuously registered and insured for at least the past year. So some poor person who stopped driving the clunker in 2008 can’t apply?

4. The $4,500 the federal program might kick in is not in addition to your vehicle’s trade-in value. So if you happen to own a gas-guzzling, well-kept, insured, registered vehicle with a blue book of at least $4,500, you need not apply?

This is so much like “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” I can’t stand it.

Much ado about nothing, masquerading as the government addressing our troubles as only the government can.

Makes me wonder if the people who thought this up had anything to do with the newly proposed health care plan.

Joe Booth

Spokane