I'm legitimately curious about your opinion on Cash for Clunkers.
I don't have a strong opinion either way, to be honest. I thought at the time that if you want to give a backdoor bailout to auto companies, then fine. It juiced some sales at a time when they were at historic lows. But positioning it as a climate action was laughably stupid, given that the most efficient car (in terms of life cycle) is one that already exists. There's no world in which a brand new Prius beats a 10-15 year old car of almost any fuel efficiency on total carbon footprint. But the total appropriation was small and it was duly enacted by Congress, so I didn't find it offensive to anything but my sense of science. I think it's impact was minimal, it helped some people get a new car, and probably bought some goodwill from people who took advantage of it. So sure, whatever. It's been 14 years though, so my memory of all the details has faded somewhat, I'm sure.