From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

Cash for clunkers. Does haste make waste?

Hello again, I'm Aran Alney, and this is To the Poet from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

The Obama administration is trumpeting about a stimulus program that works. Senators are lining up to shell out another $2 billion.

Auto dealers are ecstatic, but students of car cultures say the summer jump in sales would have occurred anyway, without any government subsidy.

One skeptic says trade-ins might end up costing taxpayers $20,000 a piece,

and others complain that past gas guzzling is being rewarded.

We'll look at the unexpected benefits and unintended consequences of cash for clunkers.

On reporter's notebook later on, the Large Hadron Collider fails again. First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica and from the Public Radio

International Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John

D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Hello again,

Mormon-Aulney, back with To the Point. Cash for Clunkers has run through almost a billion

federal dollars in just 10 days. With the Senate poised to come up with another 2 billion, our

taxpayers funding a consumer frenzy that would have happened anyway. On reporter's notebook,

after 15 years, the world's most expensive machine for studying physics

still can't be turned on. We'll hear what's wrong with Switzerland's large Hadron Collider

and what it means for learning about the origin of the universe. First, this news update. The White

House says Bill Clinton's visit to North Korea is solely private and that any official

comment might jeopardize his mission.

He is there to secure the release of two American journalists, recently sentenced to 12 years at hard labor.

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