GAO: Economic Recovery Benefits of ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Are ‘Uncertain’

"Cash for clunkers," the White House's much-touted program encouraging trade-ins for more fuel-efficient autos, had an "uncertain" impact on economic recovery, according to a new audit from the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- largely because it remains unclear how many of the car sales it spurred would have occurred without taxpayer subsidies.

The GAO report casts doubt on several of the Obama administration's claims about the success of the "clunkers" plan, including the extent of its economic benefits and the emissions savings achieved by replacing older autos with more gas-sipping vehicles.

While the GAO's nonpartisan auditors concluded that "clunkers" program achieved its overall goal of promoting economic growth, they could reach no consensus on how to measure that stimulative effect. A laudatory "clunkers" report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers reached similar conclusions concluded that 64 percent of "clunkers" sales were "incremental," meaning that the trade-ins would have occurred regardless of whether government subsidies were on offer.

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