The Cash for Clunkers program is a smashing success (pun intended because the clunkers have to be scrapped).  Here’s the problem.   The program is approximately one week old and has run out of money.  The program has $1 Billion earmarked for it.  Being a tax weenie, I ran the numbers through my calculator.  $1 Billion divided by $4,500 (the max amount of the credit) equals 222,222.22.  222,222 x 52 weeks equals 10,566,666 cars.  That’s more cars than were sold in all of 2008.  Pardon me if I’m a bit hesitant about the whole thing.  I understand that the credit is either $3,500 or $4,500 and I understand it’s approximately 1 week, but somehow I doubt that every single car sold in the past week and by extrapolation every car sold in the U.S. has a trade-in of a Clunker.  It doesn’t pass what I call the sniff test.   Email me at info@fairtaxinc.com if you think I’m all wet.