Cash for Clunkers was Van Jones’ idea. In his 2008 book “The Green Collar Economy” he said we needed to trade our hoolas for hoopties. (Can he turn a phrase or what?) The problem is he has no practical experience in anything but he set policy. This seems to be the Left’s theme, let’s try something so stupid it simply has to work. Real economists predicted what would happen with perfect accuracy.
Jones’ entire book is reduced in the above link to eight bullets which pretty much sum up the Left’s war on energy and reality.
Don’t give Van-boy too much credit.
Euros/Canada/etc were doing this decades previous, LOL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrappage_program