The date on the Snopes article does not invalidate

The date on the Snopes article does not invalidate the accuracy of this:

Quote:

---

other intended or residual effects of the CARS program, such as the economic benefits of boosting auto sales, reducing pollution by replacing older cars with more fuel-efficient vehicles, increasing safety by replacing older cars with vehicles offering advanced safety features, and providing additional parts and raw materials for the market:

[The clunkers'] components and frames ... have begun flooding the used parts and scrap-recycling markets with more than 100 million tons of steel, batteries, and tires, among other things.

"This is like a second wave of stimulus to our economy," said Bill Goodale, general manager of Millis Industries, which has picked up about 200 clunkers from local dealers and expects to take possession of hundreds more in the next few weeks.

"As it trickles down, it helps junkyards. It helps the guy looking for cheap parts to keep his car going. It adds a lot of steel to a market that hasn't produced much of it in the last year."

---

And this indicates that the program was what auto dealers needed at the time.

Practice what you preach with that 'think before you speak' sh*t.

Quote:

---

5 YEARS LATER
'Cash for clunkers opened up the floodgates'
Program provided a lifeline for the industry

Latest in a series of stories looking back at the industry collapse of 2008-09.

WASHINGTON -- It's hard to imagine that words like "U.S. sales bonanza" were ever used to describe anything that happened in 2009. But they were.

The Car Allowance Rebate System, also known as cash for clunkers, was a lifeline at a desperate time in the U.S. auto industry. Consider this: When U.S. vehicle sales fell 28 percent in June of that year, the drop wasn't seen as being so bad. Every other month that year had been worse.

"We were getting our teeth kicked in," recalled Paul Lunsford, a Toyota dealer in Orange County, Calif.

Cash for clunkers changed that, if only for a couple of months. Nearly 700,000 vehicles were traded in through the $2.85 billion program, which provided consumers as much as $4,500 each to trade in an old gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient new model. Cash for clunkers turned July and August 2009 into bright spots during what was otherwise a year that most in the industry would rather forget.

The idea was seen as a way to encourage consumer spending and reduce carbon emissions -- a priority for the new Obama administration.

The U.S. Senate introduced a bill in January 2009. After months of wrangling in Congress, the CARS program was signed into law in June with an official start date of July 1 and $1 billion in funding.
Once it took effect, customers flocked to showrooms.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales jumped to 11.4 million in July. That was the first time the SAAR topped 10 million that year.
August was even better: an unfathomable 14.6 million SAAR.

Demand was so high that the program ran out of money in less than a month. That prompted Congress to approve another $2 billion to keep the metal moving. The additional funds were exhausted by Aug. 24, two months earlier than the government expected.

"Cash for clunkers opened up the floodgates," said Toyota dealer Lunsford. He said sales at his store more than doubled from 149 new vehicles in June to 311 in August. "It was crazy."

The program also slashed industrywide inventories more than 35 percent, from about 2.2 million vehicles on the ground on July 1 to just 1.4 million two months later.

Krafcik: "Some good news"

"What we had at this particular moment was really high dealer inventories and a general skittishness amongst our dealers and in the industry as a whole," said TrueCar.com President John Krafcik, who was CEO of Hyundai Motor America at the time. Clunkers "gave the industry some good news and let the industry put some points on the board.

---