Clunkety clunkers

For several months, the van noisily dragged a sheet of metal from its undercarriage along the city street. One day, the noise stopped when the metal had been ground down enough so that it no longer touched the road. A few months after, the transmission fluid spontaneously bled out of the vehicle, a condition from which the van miraculously recovered only days later. And a few days after that, another piece of metal (from God knows where at this point) escaped from its natural resting place under the van, clanking along the ground. Add this to a broken right headlight, slight rusting of the right passenger door, a pseudo-functioning rear passenger sliding door and a gas mileage between 12 and 15 mpg, and you have yourself a good, old-fashioned "clunker."

The "Cash for Clunkers" program ended at 8 p.m. Monday, but my ragged old van still sits in its driveway. The van has a bluebook value of $1,400 on a very good day, but the Obama administration was offering $4,500 for that same automobile. How could it be that this clunker didn't make it into the government rebate program? For the same reason that all but 625,000 American clunkers were not thrown into a scrap heap-there's just something more to my ragged old van.

The government had two goals with the clunker program: 1) Increasing the nation's auto fleet's fuel efficiency, and 2) stimulating the beleaguered auto industry. The first goal was completed by requiring vehicles sold under the program to attain a higher fuel efficiency rating than the clunker being traded in. The clunkers were all scrapped, preventing their noxious fumes from ever plaguing humanity again. The second goal was met by requiring clunkers to be traded in only for new vehicles, inflating auto industry sales. Many dealerships are struggling with inventory shortages due to the sudden increase in consumer demand for cars, putting several automotive production plants back into action. Surely the "Cash for Clunkers" program brought some relief to the auto industry, and a number of dealers believe the program has boosted consumer confidence overall.

But these good developments may not last very long. The auto industry may see decreased sales in the near future with so many customers already served through the clunker program. The increased production to make up for recently depleted inventory could easily be unsustainable without another government rebate program, and the hopes of auto manufacturers to keep their plants open may be fleeting at best. And if inventory gets too high again, dealers will find themselves in the same situation as they were in only a few months ago-swamped with cars they are unable to get rid of. Very few want to return to a world where movies like "The Goods" are of some historical significance.

The program was also very limited in terms of who could benefit. Only people with enough available savings could afford to buy a new car, even with the clunker rebate. Perhaps much worse, the elimination of 625,000 clunkers from ever hitting the used car market tore down the dreams of 625,000 teenagers looking to buy their first car with paltry savings from their allowances and minimum-wage food service jobs. And don't forget the deficit. To finance the clunker program, the government added $3 billion more to our ever-mounting debt. Essentially, we each spent $10 on this program. So those who could not afford to take part in the program were actually penalized for not doing so by a little less than two hours of work at minimum wage. At some point, we are going to have to pay down our collective debt, because even this game of generational hot potato with the national debt will end with an uncomfortable loser.

That loser is looking more and more like our generation every day. Each American currently owes more than $38,000 to pay off our collective debt, and since the beginning of 2005, each of our burdens has grown by $240 monthly. Seniors will graduate owing more than $40,000. Freshmen will owe close to $50,000 when they leave Duke. And someone, eventually, will have to tighten the belt and pay up. Buying brand new cars may not be the most frugal course.

That's why my ragged old van still sits in the driveway. Sure she's wearing kind of thin, but she's in good shape for the shape that she's in. Paint her up in red, white and blue, and treat her nicely with an oil change or two, because that noisy old clunker reminds us that once upon a time we expected to work harder when the going got tough, not to wait for someone to bail us out.

Elad Gross is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Wednesday.