Driving Those Clunkers

Not a very overwhelming effort to get Cash For Clunkers through the Senate so far by Harry Reid.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday put a bill to extend the popular "cash for clunkers" program on the chamber's legislative calendar for consideration, hopefully within the next few days.

But Reid's press secretary, Jim Manley, said Democrats were still seeking a needed agreement with Republicans to proceed on the legislation passed last week by the House of Representatives.

Once again, Harry Reid is unable to count to 60 even on no-brainer legislation. What's more, the GOP wants to kill the one part of the stimulus that works. And even if this Rasmussen poll is accurate the program worked.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Americans oppose any further funding for the federal “cash for clunkers” program which encourages the owners of older cars to trade them in for newer, more fuel-efficient ones.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of adults think Congress should authorize additional funding to keep the program going now that the original $950 million allocated for it has run out. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

These numbers are virtually identical to the findings in mid-June just after Congress first approved the plan when 35% favored it while 54% were opposed.

That still means even with Rasmussen's numbers, the program still was an overwhelming success. 35% of Americans who think it's a good idea still translates into tens of millions of Americans, only 250,000 or so who ran the program out of money in a month. Another 2 months worth seems like a no brainer, especially for all the Republicans worried about these "small business owners" coming out on the short end of the stick. Suddenly though, this is a program that the GOP despises. The numbers are basically identical to the ones before the program started, and it still blew through all its money in a month. That means there's still quite a demand for it.

I guess the GOP doesn't care very much about these small business owners after all if it means they might be more amenable to the Democrats with this program to boost their sales. Still, I'm betting this program gets its money. The GOP needs to be careful opposing this one.

Then again, the Democrats just as badly need to pass this.