As I’ve written before on this blog, Cash 4 Clunkers was doomed from the start.

Sure, it helped some people trade-in old cars for new ones. But, as a whole, the program was a waste of our tax dollars.

According to Edmunds.com, Cash 4 Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.

“Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.”

Thus, taking the $3 billion cost and dividing that by 125,000 vehicles provides the $24K answer.

But how many of those 125K cars were purchased by individuals who could easily afford it and simply took advantage of taxpayers?

The quicker people realize the failure of this program, the better we’ll be able to stop more programs like this from being implemented in the future.