Our family is not well known in automobile showrooms. We tend to buy sturdy cars and drive them for decades. My wife's Omaha car is typical. A 1999 Lexus RX300 with 95,000 miles.
It runs like a champ and hasn't had any mechanical problems.
Still, its ten years old and she was contemplating a change even though car ownership in Nebraska is punitive as autos are taxed annually as property. So, if you buy a Mercedes you have the equivalent of an out of the way lake house. The "Cash for Clunkers" proposal and its $4500 tax credit was a possible way to take the sting out of Nebraska property taxes.
The Clunker bill showed up as part of a war funding package Friday and it is like most legislation: worthless. The Clunker has to get less than a 18MPG city/highway rating to qualify and then you must purchase a vehicle that gets 2MPG better mileage. The Lexus doesn't qualify as it is rated as more gas friendly than a Clunker. So ten year old SUVs cannot be taken off the road with this wonderful sounding piece of legislation.
What will qualify? Evidently older cars and trucks. Since most people don't start with a Lexus quality car, the drivers of 10+ year old vehicles are probably the second, third, or fourth owners of these cars. My assumption is that with our new, tighter credit standards they will not come close to qualifying for a car loan on a new car. Unless the government strongarms GMAC, Citi, and Bank of America into making those loans to the uncreditworthy. I wouldn't put it past them.
The success of this legislation will be marginal at best. Not many new cars will be sold as a result. Our leaders in Washington will pound their chests and tout the benefits to the economy, the auto industry, and our environment, but it is just another instance of looking like progress rather than progressing.
Government student loans were good policy. No longer. The widespread usage of student loans over the past several decades has allowed universities to expand facilities and budgets much faster than economic growth and starting salaries. Most college graduates, and even trade school graduates, are heavily indebted upon completion of their studies. Student loans are the main culprit, but the credit card lenders have also gotten into students as well. Career decisions and future lifstyles are highly affected by debtload.
Political vote gathering and university empire building have mortgaged a generation's future. These kids are going to not only have to pay large student loans, but also pay high taxes to fund boomer social security benefits, national healthcare, and massive federal debt.
The answer to this part of our national debt trajedy is to severely curtail student lending. That will reign in university spending. Motivated students can still achieve their education goals at community colleges or over the internet. Eliminate the easy funding provided by student loans and you will see schools find ways to reduce tuition to COMPETE for students. How can they do that? Start with having professors actually teach more than a few classes.
Politically Correct ads paid for by corporations infuriate me. A couple of examples. Citigroup tells me that their credit cards are wonderful because they are helping their cardholders through wonderful enhancements like alerts, etc. Alerts or no alerts, you can't help anyone at the interest rates Citi charges. their slogan "Citi Never Sleeps" means the interest always accrues! Worse still is British Petroleum [BP] ads that show consumers telling BP how the company should be run and the company agreeing!! Why have executives and a board of directors? They are just playing the PC game. Refuse to buy any of their securities.
Obama is hard at work on universal healthcare. To help design the product he sent Kathleen Sebelius, head of Health & Human services, to Omaha to hold a town meeting. She met, at breakfast, with 10 people. Yes we have a town of 10. The 10 included two medical students, a nurse, a homemaker, several people that didn't have insurance, and a couple of others. No one from insurance, business, or the medical profession. Kathleen, I'm sure you got some powerful, informed feedback from the group you assembled. Scared yet?
Omaha is facing a fiscal budget crisis and struggling for a solution. The city is also starting to recognize that they have a monster of a budget crisis brewing in their pension plans. I venture to guess that almost all governmental bodies have the same problem. Years of careless spending and committing have locked us into a serious straightjacket of taxation that will extend the downturn and weaken any recovery.
Omaha's budget answer will be token budget cuts and significant tax increases. The process will be repeated and repeated until taxpayers can pay no more. Governmental budgets will be trimmed, but not enough. When the breaking point on taxation comes, the answer will be default on bonds. At some point it will be easier to stiff far away bondholders than local voters. Our cities and states will be reorganized, like GM and Chrysler, over the next five years.
I plan to keep my perfectly good old cars and avoid municipal bonds.
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This observation is far from scientific. Not only is it not statistically valid, it is mere opinion and observation. 
