It's good news, right? The point was to get people to buy a bunch of cars, no? The sooner the better?
I sympathize with car dealers who didn't get a shot at the money, but -- If anything, the only obvious bad news here for the country is about what might have been: It turns out that the government could have offered $2,500 to $3,500 instead of $3,500 to $4,500 per vehicle, and people would probably still have bought a bunch of cars, more of them for the money budgeted, and maybe a little more slowly.
The success of this voucher program makes me wonder if perhaps voucher-type programs should have been tried sooner. A lot sooner. Vouchers in general strike me as a good compromise that combines government funding and assistance with market freedom.
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