I heard something about a government program that is coming up soon, where you can trade in your old inefficient car and get a new car for cheap. Does anyone know anything about it? Does someone have a link with more info? I know our car qualifies! Thanks!

CARS.gov - Car Allowance Rebate System - Home - Formerly Referred to as “Cash for Clunkers”

Sillly me. I buy and pay for all of my vehicles without government incentive.

Sillly me. I also bought my own house without government incentive - I heard a blurb there will be a new incentive for 1st time homebuyers.

Silly me. I work, pay my bills, pay taxes out the wazoo.

Silly me. If I could just figure out what the next hand out will be and maybe stop myself from being responsible before that.

dl

The gov is going to give away a billion dollars for the clunker junker campaign. I think it will go fast.

Will be?? Already is!! $8,000 tax credit for 1st time buyers good until Nov 30 or Dec. 1. I heard both dates yesterday on TV commercials.

Ditto that!

Us too. I keep telling dh we're doing it wrong. oh well.

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Cecilia

"We must love them both--those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it."
Saint Thomas Aquinas

There have always been incentives for 1st time homebuyers--if one knows where to look.

I'm just saying...

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"God is great,
Beer is good, and people are crazy"

Do share....

dl

1st time home buyers can qualify for certain loans/mortagages w/ lower interest rates.

Now, mind you, it's been about 4 years since we bought our home--so, my memory is fuzzy (heck it's fuzzy at 4 days, much less 4 years!) on the specifics and which programs they are...

Plus, certain locales qualify for urban renewal loans for new home buyers. You do have to do your research though--they aren't quite as obvious as the ones you're talking about.

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"God is great,
Beer is good, and people are crazy"

I am talking about government incentives, not just getting a lower interest rate. Shoot. Even a VA loan had a higher rate than what we could do on our own.

Silly me for not looking for government incentives? Honestly, I never would dream that the government would give me money for a home, car, or anything else a responsible person earns and works for.

I am white, work, have great credit, saved to have a downpayment, and waited until I could afford a house. Oh, and most importantly, bought a house I could afford.

dl

Hey, we had to get our house w/ an ARM because of H's horrible credit--however we bought a house we could afford, plus we were well aware that after 2 years the payments were going to blow up! That's why we paid our mortgage on time every month and refi'd prior to the ARM ballooning the payments....

I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying that there are and have been some incentives for 1st time buyers for a while now, just not in the form of immediate cash in your pocket.

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"God is great,
Beer is good, and people are crazy"

I know what you mean! I think the car incentive will be totally taken advantage of. I mean, you could go buy a car used for $500 or less ( a real piece of crap) and then trade it in to get like $4500 credit on a new one

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

Nope. You have to be able to prove that you've had the vehicle continually insured for the past year, the car must be less than 25 years old and it must have an MPG rating that fits a specific guideline (you'd have the check the website for the specifics). The incentive is only good on the purchase of a new car. The whole point of this program is to jumpstart the auto industry just as the first time buyers home program is to help jumpstart the housing industry.

You are white? Well, I guess that explains why you've done everything right

Ha! Good one!!!

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

Ah, good to know on proving it was insured for at least a year. I hadn't heard that

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

You've picked a strange attempt at correlation. Yes I am white although I haven't always done everything right. It means I got no incentives, no grants, no special treatment due to being a minority along the way.

I simply never looked for, nor expected the government or anyone else to spoon me along. I did barely make it for several years, but I did make it. Yes, I do have fierce and strong beliefs about people being self sufficient and responsible.

I learned and kept at getting what I needed, then what I wanted, on my own merits. That is part of what the USA was founded on. Independence, not dependence. The dependence our politicians dish out now to make themselves feel good has taken us down the wrong road. Many people now expect to have their needs taken care of and now, not tomorrow. Many people confuse what is necessity with what they want.

To stay on topic, if you can't afford a new car without $4500 from the government, you shouldn't get a new car.

Where is our pride? Where is our self sufficiency?

dl

Neither of these programs has anything to do with race. Both programs are being enacted to try and jumpstart two industries that are failing badly.

Please read my post above. There is much more to the continual handouts.

dl

>most importantly, bought a house I could afford.<


Bingo

Do you really think giving a 10% credit, up to $8000, on the purchase of a first home is allowing people to buy a home they can't afford? Lenders now require 20% down and the buyer does have to be able to afford the payments (using the debt/income ratio) The days of people buying houses they can't even come close to affording are over. That's why it puzzles me that some of you are upset over programs designed to jumpstart failing industries.

Exactly! If you can't afford a safe, dependable USED car, why in the hell would you go into MAJOR debt to buy a NEW car

I can't afford a NEW car and I don't want "my" money going to subsidize YOUR NEW car.

Geez.

Does being white give you pride and self sufficiency that is lacking elsewhere? I'm curious as to why you felt the need to add that little bit of info.

And I don't want my money to go to support religious charities, tobacco subsidies, oil company subsidies and several other things that I can't do squat about. Too bad for both of us.

Not at all. While I have my faults, the basics I do have. I stated white because of the lack of grants, scholarships, subsidies, etc without being a minority. Ever seen a scholarship FOR a white person? I saw plenty when in college for various minorities.

dl

My son got a $25,000 acadeic scholarship from the state. So did most of his friends, most of whom are white.

I think that your prejudice is showing...........................

Acadeic, did you mean Academic?

Try really hard to think again. It's been quite a while since I put myself through college so perhaps things have changed - for the better.

If I was prejudiced, and if I wanted it to show it would. There have been many opportunities along the way in real life and here in pseudo life at mc. Of course, here, others assume for you, such as evidenced once again by you.

dl

I agree with you on those points as well. What do you mean by subsidies for tobacco and oil, can you expand on that?

Part of my point is, that we already GIVE too much. We can't seem to do squat about it, (as you say) but where does it stop? It irritates me to now give more, bail out more, give people money for a house AND a car......it's insane.

dl

My parents put me and my three sisters through school. I put my son through school without going ihim, or us, going into debt.

My m is sticking, so very sorry.

You seem to think that scholarships are only available for minorities. That is just not true.

"Where is our pride? Where is our self sufficiency?"

Going down the crapper along with the country. People need to live on their own, by and within their own means and stop looking for bailouts and government money.

China is where it has all gone.

I don't know when you went to college but a friend of mine has a son who is now in his early forties. He got a full ride at Washington U. in St. Louis clear through his doctorate. At that time the cost of going for the doctorate part was about 60K a year. The last I checked, and I admit I haven't seen him in about 10 years, he was a white person.

She has three sons and this was the middle boy. I remember when the oldest was getting ready to pick a college she was going on and on about how there were no scholarships for her kids. I told her about one that was available where her husband works for about 6K a year. She informed me it was only available for higher ups in the company. I insisted she was wrong and then mentioned two other possibilities which she informed me were not available for her boys. I also noticed 4 years later that the middle boy managed to get two of the three scholarships, including the one from work, that I had told her about for boy number one, plus several others. Boy number three, 6 years after that also went through school without paying.

The scholarships were there, you might not have located them, but they were there. I admit some are obscure and have very tight criteria, but there are thousands of them out there. Now you can go online and locate many of them. Isn't the internet great. The only problem now, is that a lot more people can find them too.

for some reason this made me laugh out loud!

Scholarships and grants are out there--you just have to look, apply, be qualified or meet the criteria. Granted some are easier than others, but...hey, isn't that true of most things?

__________________
"God is great,
Beer is good, and people are crazy"

A couple of examples and I'm sure there are more. If there's an oil spill, who do you think pays for the clean up, in the main? The way I understand it is, we do.

Regular non-oil companies are taxed higher than oil companies.

Exploration is either subsidized or paid for by us as well, I think.

I'm guessing, since I can't find a reference, tobacco subsidies are a thing of the past. That is good news indeed.

I don't have links or proof. Just ideas from things I've read. There are articles in the Huffington Post and from the Cato Institute about the oil subsidies.

I did find this interesting site about farm subsidies. I have no idea who they are or if they have an ax to grind. FA-RM: Subsidies for Billionaires -- and Congresspeople Too!

At any rate, I think we have too many subsidies. Some may be needed but none should be permanent. All should be reviewed yearly and decided upon at that time.That alone should keep congress out of trouble. They would be so busy reviewing these that they wouldn't have time to tackle other important issues like whether some town in Tennessee needs a two-headed snake zoo and whether the purple eyed, three legged snail moth should have it's own holiday. And don't ask me about those, I just made them up and they're not nearly as crazy as what actually goes up for consideration.

Geez, I go away for one day, and this is what I come back to?

You guys seem really angry at me because I am interested in thsi government program? If I can't afford a $4,500 car, then i don't deserve to own a new one? I am disabled, and no, I cannot afford that!!!

I'm sorry I even started this thread!


...BTW, Thank you, Genichols, for that link. I appreciate it.

Girl, don't worry about what some people say. You can't expect those perfect people with perfect lives to understand. I just hate to see the day that one of them needs some help. I have had assistance on things in the past when things happened out of my control and I had children to think of. I have paid into the system since I was 15 years old and when I needed to use "my money" I did so. I hope you get your car.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

I get frustrated daily at work. I work in a doctors office. It is sickening to see the people playing the system and getting disability, free health care (medicare, medicaid). It gets difficult to go to work when you know that people younger and in better health than you are at home working the system and getting it all for free.

My husband and I worked hard and bought our house, cars and anything else that we needed or wanted without the governments help. It is hard to see where our tax money is going.

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Sell crazy some place else, we are all stocked up here.

I don't think it's you people are angry at, it's the system.

There are PLENTY of people that are in need - that's never an issue. It's those that DON'T really need and do what they can to work the system. There have been great ideas for government programs, but unfortunately, it gets easy to find loopholes. Then folks in real need...folks like YOU...don't get approved for programs because there's no longer money, etc.

There are always going to be people that want to do next to nothing and get all the handouts they can, whether they deserve it or not. I've seen people living in expensive houses, close to 1/2 a million in value, getting assistance because someone knew how to work the system. Yet another poor soul, couldn't get his medication paid for because he made 1K too much money per year - $16,000. That's right, the limit was $15,000. He was honest and got denied. Can you even imagine?

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It's not a $4500 car, it's $4500 toward a car that perhaps you (others) cannot afford payments on. Plain and simple, if I can't afford something, I go without or don't get it. Deserve has nothing to do with it. That's it, affordability and responsibility. Maybe you didn't mean to use the word deserve, but it closely resembles entitled. You didn't say need, as in a true need.

Just a thought - I am over $4500 in the hole because I bought my own car, and to boot, I am paying for part of other people's. I already bought my own home, so I am over $8000 in the hole on that too. Just think how I could stimulate the economy IF I had more of my own money to spend as I wish!!!!!

I do not believe this form of "jump starting the ecomony" will do much, just like the financial bail outs and then we find out where their money continues to go!

dl

I never said I was perfect, had a perfect life or anything like that. I am also not angry. I am frustrated but never said it was towards anyone on this board. It is hard however to see the people that do work the system.

As for the car program, if I was in the market for a car, and I was able to use the program, I sure the heck would. It is tax payer money paying for it and I am a tax payer. I however have four cars and I am about to pay off the last one, I do not want to take on another payment. The cars are older and have about 100,000 miles each on them but they are ours free and clear.

As for anyone being angry at the OP, I didnt see that in this post. I think people do have feelings about the government and economy right now but didnt think this post was personal at all.

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Sell crazy some place else, we are all stocked up here.

You have to remember that our tax money is paying for the gas guzzler campaign. What a bummer. Also... the gov. is offering this because they have stakes in the auto world now and now need to make a profit. If the gov goes on a big rendevoux at a luxery resort to celebrate a profit if this works... can we all go since it is our taxes that helped fund it? Wouldn't that be great. My kids would love to go swimming at a big resort pool!

Interestingly, for whatever reason, it's the blue states that seem to be in the most dire economic trouble right now.

Is it because of the 'blue policies' that exist in those states?

The stimulus money is primarily being expended to those states. If it's because they need it the most, what does that say about the 'blue way' of running business? Michigan, for instance, is highly unionized and workers there have tended to have everything from Cadillac insurance policies to extremely generous retirement packages... something the free market driven by the rest of the nation ultimately couldn't support, financially.

Or is Obama choosing to prop up those states because they voted for him?

Of the 872 counties supported Obama during the election, each received about $69 in stimulus per person. Of the 2,234 counties that voted for John McCain, the average was $34.

I'm sure some scholarship opportunities still exist (your one data point is 20+ years old) , but I tend to agree with deddlast that the current emphasis is on getting scholarship money to under-represented minorities. In technical fields, this can include white females but not white males. In most fields, it includes Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans. The exception is probably Caucasian children who have limited family or personal assets.

cj/

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips

Funny...but but I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.....

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips