Report: Cash for Clunkers has cost $77 million to run

Here's a nice scoop from my colleague Ed O'Keefe: He is reporting that the Transportation Department has spent $77 million to run the Cash for Clunkers program.

You can read the full report by clicking here.

As regular readers know, I have been at best skeptical of this program. If all you wanted to do was prop up a lot of auto dealers, then Cash for Clunkers was a runaway success. But it only moved eventual demand for new cars forward, it had few upstream benefits and it essentially only sold down dealer inventory.

So here's another thing to think about when evaluating the efficacy of the program.

-- Frank Ahrens
Sign up to get The Ticker on Twitter