Cash for Clunkers program is a clunker for NY car dealers

We’ve all heard the stories about car dealers not getting reimbursed in a timely manner from the Federal Government’s Cash for Clunkers program. It seems that now some dealers in New York are cashing out of the program:

NY dealers pull out of clunkers program

Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government, a dealership group said Wednesday. The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, which represents dealerships in the New York metro area, said about half its 425 members have left the program because they cannot afford to offer more rebates. They’re also worried about getting repaid.

“(The government) needs to move the system forward and they need to start paying these dealers,” said Mark Schienberg, the group’s president. “This is a cash-dependent business.” Schienberg said the group’s dealers have been repaid for only about 2 percent of the clunkers deals they’ve made so far. Many dealers have said they are worried they won’t get repaid at all, while others have waited so long to get reimbursed they don’t have the cash to fund any more rebates, Schienberg said. “The program is a great program in the sense that it’s creating a lot of floor traffic that a lot of dealers haven’t seen in a long time,” he said. “But it’s in the hands of this enormous bureaucracy and regulatory agency,” he added. “If they don’t get out of their own way, this program is going to be a huge failure.”

Mr. Schienberg has obviously not read Ludwig Von Mises’s Bureaucracy.

[Thanks to Eli Cryderman]