The Dallas Morning News reports the Lone Star State is spending $100m to get gas-guzzling, smog-spewing old cars off the road in the metro DFW and Houston areas. The program, which began taking applications last December, provides vouchers to low-income families who have cars that are at least 10 years old. The vouchers can be used as a down payment on a new or late-model used car ($3K voucher) or up to one-year-old hybrid ($3.5K) at dealers who participate in the "Air Check Texas" program. It's a pretty popular program, as you can imagine. Freeman Toyota has sold 80 cars to voucher holders so far, and Lone Star Chrysler-Plymouth-Jeep has 50 sales completed or pending, most of them used car sales. The program is expected to exhaust its funds for this fiscal year by summer, but there are already funds set aside for FY09. Justifiable environmental intervention or a greenwashed subsidy for local car dealers? We report, you kvetch.
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Better than taxing them silly.
A bounty to get old polluters off the road is not a new idea and it’s probably a good idea, but the concern has always been that if you institute such a program, suddenly a bunch of wrecks from Mexico will get turned in.
For this Texas program, I haven’t heard what happens to the old car. If it’s not scrapped, I don’t think anything is getting accomplished.
Interesting to give it a try. It beats hell of, say, the British system of having a 3-year government inspection that is so onerous that everyone is afraid to attempt it, and so they trade in their cars before they’re three years old.
I’ve always thought that rich whiny environmentalists should do this — wait around at a 7-11, and the first redneck who shows up in an old beater, you spot them cab fare and $2000 cash for their jalopy right on the spot.
I’d like to know what connections the senator that sponsored this bill has with car dealers in the area. I don’t see any real benefit other than to the dealers in subsidizing underfunded car buyers with public money at all. Especially if they’re buying used cars.
On an aside – is it just me, or does anyone else seem to notice more poor people driving nearly-new SUVs that get 12 mpg? I’m talking Expeditions, Explorers, Tahoes, Durangos, etc., sitting outside if countless trailers. Ridiculous.
I’ve always thought that rich whiny environmentalists should do this — wait around at a 7-11, and the first redneck who shows up in an old beater, you spot them cab fare and $2000 cash for their jalopy right on the spot.
It’ll take more than two grand for me to part with my old beater, even if it ain’t worth two bucks. She’s got sentimental value, ya know…
Kevin
A bounty to get old polluters off the road is not a new idea and it’s probably a good idea, but the concern has always been that if you institute such a program, suddenly a bunch of wrecks from Mexico will get turned in.
To keep this from happening, you have to have owned the car for a at least a year, and it has to have a current state inspection sticker. That’s to keep someone from going out and buying a $500 beater just to get the $3K voucher, or from taking the Camaro off of the concrete blocks in the front yard to cash in on it.
FREE MONEY! giveaways are always popular, and Texas certainly need not worry about a lack of applicants since the system invites gaming and even outright fraud. This program will be worth a thesis or dissertation as a case study of unintended consequences. Just one odd outcomes: a car will be more valuable at ten years old than at nine.
As always, there are devils in the details. Childless couples with “net income” over $42,000 aren’t eligible. What’s “net?” It’s take-home pay, which is verified with the last one to three months of pay stubs. You make $80K a year, you say? Just omit that month with the big annual bonus, or boost that 401K contribution for a while. Or get your old Aunt Millie, who is about to quit driving anyway, to front for you.
Another aspect: this program effectively says the present economic harm of a ’97 Sable’s pollution is at least $3,000. If things are that bad, Texas should consider emulating Dick Tracy by putting cops in helicopters and ordering them to shoot engine block-cracking slugs at every old car.
Once again, it’s criminal. It actually amounts to taking from the poor to give to the lower middle class that is likely on it’s way up. The more educated people are the ones who are going to get a disproportionate amount of these deals.
Because our tax system is based on sales taxes and property taxes it is actually more progressive than income taxes. Good thing, or this would be even worse.
Lastly, I have seen no evidence that they limit the purchases to small, clean, affordable vehicles.
By the way, the biggest fiscal concern we have in Texas is how to piss away our unstoppable $9 billion a year surpluses. Austin’s not going to just rebate the money, so why not throw a bone to da people?
I drive a 15 year old beater myself — as usual I don’t make enough to be rich but I make too much to load up on free government cheese.
I see that the program’s logo refers to AirCheckTexas as a “repair and replacement assistance program.” That being the case, I wonder why the program (at least as described by the Dallas Morning News) doesn’t offer subsidies to overhaul older vehicles to bring them back into spec? I would think that repairing old, neglected vehicles to bring their emissions back to factory spec would be more environmentally sound, for two reasons. First, keeping an old car running well (with emissions at the levels the car had when it was new) eliminates the need to scrap the old car. Second, it also eliminates the need to expend resources in building a new car.
That being said, I understand that moving metal is an easy metric with which to impress the politicians who are voting to fund this program….
As a resident of Texas, I have to say that people that drive cars old enough to participate in the program either A. Have a classic beauty that they drive around infrequently, or B. Drive the old cars because they don’t have the money or credit to buy a new car (College Students, Impoverished, elderly). So the program really doesn’t work. Unless you find a way to buy a car with food stamps.
AuricTech :
February 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I see that the program’s logo refers to AirCheckTexas as a “repair and replacement assistance program.” That being the case, I wonder why the program (at least as described by the Dallas Morning News) doesn’t offer subsidies to overhaul older vehicles to bring them back into spec? I would think that repairing old, neglected vehicles to bring their emissions back to factory spec would be more environmentally sound, for two reasons. First, keeping an old car running well (with emissions at the levels the car had when it was new) eliminates the need to scrap the old car. Second, it also eliminates the need to expend resources in building a new car.
You couldn’t be more right, but we all know this isn’t about the environment, as usual, it’s all about the $$$. Not to mention nothing like promoting fiscal responsiblity with an income-challenged family by coaxing them into a new car loan they can’t afford.
My taxdollars hard at work as usual. This low income Texas family will continue gleefully smogging the environazis in their Prius to death in our 1989, 1992, and 1994 fullsize, RWD, V8 cars and truck regardless of how legislators attempt to lure us into to their buddy’s new car dealership with my tax dollars into the foreseeable future.
At least they are giving enough money for it to be useful. The $500 car scrap programs are a joke, because $500 does nothing to help get into a good car.
$3000 is a serious bit of change which can cover 1/2 the cost of a good used 3 year old Taurus.
armadamaster :
February 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
AuricTech :
February 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I see that the program’s logo refers to AirCheckTexas as a “repair and replacement assistance program.” That being the case, I wonder why the program (at least as described by the Dallas Morning News) doesn’t offer subsidies to overhaul older vehicles to bring them back into spec? I would think that repairing old, neglected vehicles to bring their emissions back to factory spec would be more environmentally sound, for two reasons. First, keeping an old car running well (with emissions at the levels the car had when it was new) eliminates the need to scrap the old car. Second, it also eliminates the need to expend resources in building a new car.
1) Texas also has an income based program that provides up to $600 to repair an older vehicle that has failed an emissions test, that’s been around for a couple of years now.
2) If you get the replacement voucher, the car you buy doesn’t have to be “new”. Late model used cars (2005 or newer) also qualify.