Priced To Move

I understand the government's love affair with acronyms, or GLAWA. It is as profound as it is insincere. Routinely, as a veteran teacher, I feel compelled to translate the TLA's (three letter acronyms) that seem to randomly generate in all corners of my profession for those who are new to the game. It's a form of shorthand that keeps people on the outside from knowing too much about what is going on the inside of the system that should be working for them.
Imagine my surprise, then, when the folks in Washington D.C. (District of Columbia) came up with CARS. The Car Allowance Rebate System is pretty self-explanatory. This is the one that gives new car buyers between three and four thousand dollars for their old car when they buy a new one. I would love to take credit for this idea, as I was busy ranting here on this blog at one point about what we should be spending our tax dollars on instead of the Iraq War. I suggested a program for subsidizing hybrid cars for low-income families, since they were the ones who would most likely be the ones who needed both reliable transportation and were probably driving some gas-guzzling, carbon monoxide-spewing beast on its last legs. Getting those Novas and Monte Carlos off the road, "clunkers" if you will, save money in the long run while saving the planet at the same time.
Thank goodness someone with a clear head, some car salesman no doubt, rechristened CARS "Cash For Clunkers." Whether the air is any easier to breathe or not, the other immediate consequence of the program was Ford reporting its first U.S. sales increase in nearly two years. It kind of makes me wonder if this plan, properly managed and introduced might have saved a few billion dollars in auto-maker bailout funds. Still, nothing golden stays, and who knows how long the government will be willing to provide cash incentives to car buyers. Eventually, as technology continues and electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars prepare to take the place of those gas-guzzling hybrids, the government may need a whole new program: Cash Replacing Aging Prius (you figure it out).