Ths program is mostly garbage:
There are two groups of people who drive those clunkers: 1. People who do need SUV or pickups; 2. people who bought those gas gazzalers before when the gas price was cheap.
The program is for the second group of people, people who do not need SUV or pickup for their daily commute. But unfortunately, there are so many who belong to the first. They have so old SUV or pickups that are worth nothing, so they just trade in the worthless thing for $4500 or $3500 for a new car. But remember, these first groups of people do need SUV or pickup. What do they do now? they simply buy another SUV or pickup for their tasks.
The program also wastes lots of perfectly running SUVs or pickups. I think the program should be like this: The people who would like to get rid of their pickups or SUVs give them to the people who do need SUV or pickups but can not afford to buy new ones for free to replace their old ones. In return, the government pays the donors $3500 or $4500 for the purchase of a new car with >xx mpg.