Today I caught an interesting debate between Lauren Fix and Geoffrey Pohanka on the status and success/failure of the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) or Cash For Clunkers program. CNN brought them on as part of its coverage of the first anticipated depletion of the one billion dollars allocated to CARS after just 5 days.

As many already know by now, the House today debated, voted and passed an additional allocation of $2 billion to keep the program going. The Senate process is a little more complex, as discussed over at politico.com and yahoo.com.

But back to the debate.

Lauren Fix is an Award winning automotive expert and Editor-In-Chief for CarZen.com. She is news journalist and correspondent for CNN and Fox News. Geoffrey Pohanka is president of Pohanka Automotive Group, with 15 auto dealerships serving the Metro Washington D.C. area. His dealers sell about 16,000 new cars each year.

Both Ms. Fix and Mr. Pohanka had their own valid points, but each seemed to be ignoring the argument of the other party, and stayed on their own line of reasoning. Fix is more interested in the larger impact or non-impact of the program, while Pohanka, of course, is ecstatic about selling cars again. In my opinion they agree with each other much more than they realize. This one is interesting in that it lays out a good number of arguments and insights into the Cash For Clunkers program.

The bottom line: early indications are that it is a great success despite its small amount of money made available to it compared to the much grander stimulus package. Though I wonder how sustainable this will be in the next few weeks and months.

Cash for Clunkers-Lauren Fix / Geoffrey Pohanka debate, courtesy CNN 07-31-09.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1a7pj8gKo

Lauren Fix and Geoffrey Pohanka Debate on the Success of Cash For Clunkers Program is a post from: CleanCarTalk

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