Cash for Clunkers Plan Could Be Worth $25 Billion  Scrapped_Cars
Consulting firm CSM Worldwide released a report saying a
thoughtfully designed cash-for-clunkers law could pump as much
as $25 billion into the U.S. economy and ratchet up sales by as
many as a million cars.  Versions of the proposed legislation,
which President Barack Obama mentioned during a speech today
about the auto industry, come both from auto-state lawmakers
looking to promote domestic sales and from lawmakers hoping to
address environmental concerns by getting owners of gas-guzzlers
into more fuel-efficient cars.  A compromise bill could work
quite nicely because people on both sides of this argument are
right and wrong: Some proposals would mandate that people
replace their clunkers with new domestic cars in order to
receive the cash, while other proposals limit the pool of
eligible cars to only the most fuel-efficient models —
essentially, hybrids and compact cars.  Any law discriminating
against foreign automakers would certainly mee