Stimulus: Bail out car companies by giving the money to consumers

[thesquanderer]

This sounds brilliant to me.

offer a 50 percent rebate check to every purchaser of a new, American-made car produced by any auto company that signs up for a voluntary restructuring program with the federal government. The rebate would be paid by the Treasury Department, and then exchanged for preferred stock in the company that produced the car.

* Giving people a major incentive to buy a new car *now* would be a huge economic stimulus.

* Getting all those unsold cars out of inventory would solve the immediate problems of the car companies.

* Tying the program to a restructuring would address the car companies' longer term issues.



http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0811w.leonard.html