The person who calculated this bit of information is now, and has been a professor at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown for the last forty some years.
He says that:
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A new vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons of gas a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction reduced gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.
The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so that is 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.
So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
They spent $8.57 for every $1.00 they saved.
I'm pretty sure they will do a much better job with our health care though.
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