NH Customers Asked to Cover Clunkers Rebate; Healthcare Costs Next? *Updated
Today’s Union Leader reports that some NH auto buyers are being asked to cover their promised “cash for clunkers” rebates:
Frustrated with delays, rejections and computer-system crashes, several New Hampshire auto dealers are making car buyers pledge to cover rebates if the federal government doesn’t come through with checks under the Cash for Clunkers program.
Auto dealers say they are doing so because the federal government is a clunker when it comes to sending out rebate checks of $3,500 or $4,500 per car.
Now of course there are associated consumer protection issues and the state of NH is looking into it. Maybe there needs to be some form of protection for the dealers as well.
In Swanzey, the dealership that includes Toyota of Keene is waiting for money from 130 rebates.
Fore some dealers, the IOUs surpass $500,000, (NH Auto Dealers Association President Peter) McNamara said. “For any dealer, $100,000 represents a serious cash-flow issue if you don’t know when it’s going to come in,” he said.
And President Obama’s administration thinks it can manage a nationalized health care system? Reminds me of this guy:
*Update: HotAir reports on the Feds pulling workers away from FAA to staff exploding Cash for Clunkers bureaucracy and adds this cautionary note:
There’s actually a serious risk here that the feds are going to mismanage a simple car-rebate program into bankruptcy. Oh, and more good news: Confirming earlier suspicions, it’s foreign carmakers that are getting the lion’s share of the sales. Exit question: Which is more frightening as an omen for ObamaCare’s future problems? Yesterday’s $2 trillion upwards budget revision or this wheezing canary in the coal mine?
*Update: Mercifully it’s over. Ed Morrissey has a good review of this clunker of a program.
The real irony with these clunker plans is that what people are buying is not American-made. Most of the cash for clunkers vehicles sold were foreign. This video has some compelling perspectives – http://www.newsy.com/videos/cash_for_clunkers_was_it_worth_it