A LOT OF THOUGHT WAS GIVEN TO THIS PROGRAM BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION
The person who calculated this bit of information is now and has been a
professor at The University of West Virginia in Morgantown, West Virginia
for the last forty some years.
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800
gallons of gas a year.
A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480
gallons of gas a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year.
The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so
that's 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million
barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel
costs about $350 million dollars.
So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save
$350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every $1.00 we saved.
I'm pretty sure they will do a better job with our health care,
though.
