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Submitted to Reddit by someone who deleted it and to Digg by besos 7-26-2008

The idea makes a lot of sense, but then it brings to mind the possible negative consequence of forcing more cars to be built to meet demand.

In theory, we can reduce the carbon footprint of those who have high-pollution automobiles by buying them back, then converting them to scrap (hopefully scrap that can be recycled, but that part isn’t covered).  We can assume that the people who take advantage of this will then go out and buy newer, more eco-friendly cars.

My only question: is it worth the expenditure?  Can that money be used better in other ways, since we’re talking about a lot of money?  Good topic for debate.  I would love to see the actual numbers.

Original Description:

Basically, the idea would be to have the federal government buy up many of the country’s oldest, most polluting cars and scrap them; the owners, who would likely be lower-income individuals, would be paid at above-market prices and allowed to spend the money however they would see fit.

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