Ok... let's play that game... Let's say the average car sold was 30K. Proably wasn't that much, but let's go with it, and then lets say the average comission on the sale is 5%. I KNOW the car business and it ISN'T that high, but let's go with it so I can be as fair to you on this one as possible. 700,000 cars, times 30,000 is 21 billion in sales. Now, let's assume the average comission is 5%, which works out to $1,050,000,000 in comission. Now, let's say that these fine folks are in the 25% tax bracket. Again, probably not, but I'm trying to make this as heavily to your argument as possible... BEST possible return to the treasury in income taxes as a result of this program is $262,500,000 or a quarter of a billion dollars on a program with a $3,000,000,000 price tag. Now, consider that the program cost about $220,000,000 to run based on the most recent estimates, and this $3 BILLION dollar program made the treasury $42 Million Dollars. To put it another way, the govnerment earned $42 dollars for every $3000 spent. That isn't a good investment in anyone's book, not even the most LAME investor. ...now, consider the following - A clunker vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline. A more fuel efficient vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles - so that's 224 million gallons / year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's US consumption. And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $75/bbl. So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $350 million. How good a deal was that ??? What other measurable would you and eeally like us to look at to determine how well this progam worked? It was a bust, guys. Plain and simple. ...they'll probably do a great job with health care though!!