The White House says the credits will entice new hires. Some economists say: not so much.

Roberton Williams, tax policy expert at the Urban Institute, points out the obvious, telling the Christian Science Monitor today that no struggling company is going to bring on a new worker — an obligation of tens of thousands of dollars — just for the 6.2 percent tax exemption on that salary.

Generally, companies only hire more workers if they think demand for their products is going to increase, notes [Williams].

A tax credit now might drive some hiring on the margins, says Williams. It might push companies that were thinking of taking on new worker to move more quickly than they might have otherwise.

“But the real winners will be firms who were going to hire anyway,” he says.

Huh. Where have we heard that before? (Surely not here, or here.)

The result? Of the new vehicles sold under the program, the top three were all Japanese — the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry — and only two of the top 10 were built by one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers.

Fast forward five months, and the same lawmaker who designed the program is now blasting the Japanese for excluding American models from Japan’s own clunkers initiative. The Washington Post reports today that Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), who sponsored America’s clunkers program, filed a resolution Tuesday “calling for the U.S. trade officials to initiate a trade case against Japan if its program continues to exclude U.S. brands.”

“It’s outrageous,” Sutton said Wednesday. “They specifically designed it to exclude the participation of U.S. auto imports.”

This is no black and white issue. The foreign transplants do plenty of manufacturing in the U.S., creating thousands of jobs, particularly in the Southern states. Still, if the goal was to boost sales in Detroit, Sutton might have fought harder to limit the program to vehicles made in the U.S., as her initial proposal would have done.

“Pursuant to the legislation, the DOT had only 30 days after the date the legislation was enacted into law to engage contractors and stand up the Program before the first rebates were issued,” Grassley wrote Tuesday in a letter to Ray LaHood, secretary of the Department of Transportation.

It is my understanding that the original legislation provided $50 million to cover the costs of these contracts, but no specific funding provision for the contractors was included with the additional $2 billion that was provided for the Program. To date the Administration has not provided an accurate accounting of the administrative costs related to the Cash for Clunkers program and I believe that the American taxpayer deserves more information, not less, and that information needs to come sooner rather than later.

The numbers aren’t insignificant. In August, Autoblog reported that the administrative costs to process the 690,000 transactions hit $100 million — or about $145 per vehicle. Among the contractors/agencies who received some of that pie, Grassley says, are Citibank, Vangent and the IRS. The response should be interesting.

That’s precisely what happened.

Roughly 13 weeks after Congress infused $2 billion more into the Clunkers program — and about 10 weeks after the program ended — the Department of Transportation finally unveiled the final figures surrounding the program, posting the details of all 677,000 transactions on its Website. The Associated Press undertook the unenviable task of crunching the data, to discover that the single most popular swap was that of an old Ford F-150 pickup for a new Ford F-150 pickup.

Owners of that pickup were 17 times more likely to buy a new F-150 than, say, a Toyota Prius. The new pickups’ EPA combined city/highway mileage ratings ranged from 15 mpg to 17 mpg, depending on the powertrain and other factors, up 1 mpg to 3 mpg over the old ones.

That’s not to say there wasn’t some environmental benefit to the program. Indeed, the average trade-in vehicle got 15.8 miles per gallon, while drive-away vehicles averaged 24.9 mpg. Still, how much better could those numbers have been if Congress had summoned the guts to pass a slightly different Clunkers bill — one that bumped up the mileage requirements to prevent drivers from trading clunkers for clunkers? As Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the sponsors of the alternative bill, wrote in The Wall Street Journal in June, the original program was “expertly designed to provide Detroit one last windfall in selling off gas guzzlers currently sitting on dealer lots because they’re not a smart buy.”

Of course, in the end, both Feinstein and Collins voted for the $2 billion extension of that very windfall.

Like hundreds of thousands of folks this summer, Anna Causey knew a deal when she saw it. Enticed by the rebates offered under the cash for clunkers program, the Summerville, S.C., resident ran her 1986 Buick Century down to a local dealer last month, scrapped it for a 2009 Dodge Ram pickup, and scooped up a $3,500 government discount for the trouble.

A month later, it doesn’t seem like such a great bargain.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Causey’s trade, it turns out, didn’t qualify for a rebate based on the cash-for-clunkers’ mileage requirements. Though she’d signed all the papers, swapped the tags and updated her insurance policy, Causey was called back to the dealership shortly afterward and presented with two options: either accept a new contract — one that would grant $1,000 for the old Buick and require that she pay back the $2,500 difference — or give up the truck. Thinking a deal’s a deal, Causey and her husband chose a third route: they stormed out, and hired a lawyer instead.

“I didn’t even look at the new paperwork,” the 68-year-old Causey said in a telephone interview Friday. “I’d signed a contract. We walked off with the contract thinking we owned a truck.”

As the Obama administration begins winding down the $3 billion cash for clunkers program, similar stories of consumer frustration are popping up nationwide. While a great deal of ink has been used to chronicle the trials of the auto dealers — many of whom have become rankled by the slow pace of federal reimbursement — much less has gone to point out that there are consumers out there feeling roughed up as well. Some bargain hunters have been prevented from driving their new vehicle off the lot until Washington approves the rebate. Others have been asked to sign liability waivers placing all the risk on themselves rather than the dealers. And in episodes like the one involving the Causeys, some dealers are allowing trades under the cash-for-clunkers banner only to retract them later, leaving both dealers and consumers pointing fingers in agitated blame.

John LaPuma is in one such bind. In July, the 48-year-old from Olathe, Kan., traded his 1998 Ford Windstar, a 6-cylinder mini-van boasting around 192,000 miles, for a spanking new Nissan Frontier pickup. After the dealer gave him a $3,500 clunkers’ discount for the swap, he paid the remaining balance in cash and drove off. The next evening, however, the dealer called with bad news: the Frontier didn’t qualify for the rebate. Yet when LaPuma checked Nissan’s Web site afterward, he found that his trade was still being advertised as eligible for the discount. “We’d made a deal here,” LaPuma, an employee of Anheuser Busch, said in a telephone interview Friday. If his trade didn’t qualify for a clunkers’ rebate, he added, the dealer “should have known this ahead of time.”

Dave Tolbert, managing partner at Olathe’s McCarthy Nissan, where LaPuma bought the pickup, said the confusion arose because the truck qualified on the DOT’s Web site one day, but was dropped from eligibility the next — an updating of mileage standards that’s affected dozens of vehicle models and left frustrated dealers and buyers alike as they feel their way through the young program. McCarthy has resubmitted the application, Tolbert said, along with a print-out of the original Web page indicating that the Frontier once qualified for a rebate. The verdict should arrive, Tolbert said, by the middle of the week.

Matthew Nappi, 27, a systems administrator, said he also ran into trouble under the clunkers program. It wasn’t that his dealer wouldn’t grant the $4,500 clunkers’ rebate when Nappi scrapped his 1995 Infiniti J-30 in favor a 2010 Toyota Corolla. But the salesman did ask the Coram, N.Y., native to sign a contingency agreement putting him on the line for that amount if Uncle Sam rejected the application. Initially, the dealer also prevented Nappi from driving the Corolla off the lot, forcing him back into his clunker even after the sale. “In my ignorance I really didn’t know that wasn’t normal,” Nappi said by phone on Friday.

For Nappi, the saga ended happily. After learning more about the program guidelines, the dealer eventually voided the contingency agreement, he said, and allowed him to drive away in his new Corolla. “They weren’t being malicious,” Nappi said. “They just wanted to cover their backs.”

Still, such tales have ignited concerns among consumer advocates that some dealers might be gaming the clunkers program by asking consumers to front the rebate money from one end, while the government pays from the other. While there are safeguards in place to ensure that trades qualify and clunkers are scrapped, there’s “no mechanism” to guarantee that the dealers haven’t already collected rebate money from consumers, according to Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety.

Joined by Public Citizen and Consumer Action, Shahan’s group is asking the Department of Transportation to require dealers, as a condition of receiving their federal reimbursement, to attest in writing that they haven’t already collected the rebate from the customer — “a basic audit,” Shahan said, “to see if some of these dealers are double dipping.”

Not that the administration isn’t aware of some of these problems. The website for cash for clunkers — formally called the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save, or CARS, program — addresses several of them specifically. “Consumers are not required to sign contingency agreements to pay back the dealer should the CARS credit be rejected,” one passage reads. “If the dealer has the new car in stock, the dealer must allow you to take possession of the new car before the dealer may submit the credit application to the government,” states another.

Still, those rules haven’t prevented some dealer groups from continuing to endorse a system that protects dealers at the expense of consumers. The Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association, for example, has posted on its Website a standardized form designed to transfer all the risk surrounding cash for clunkers’ deals from the dealer to the consumer. “The dealership believes in good faith that your trade-in vehicle qualifies for the CARS incentive and that funds will be available,” the form states. “However, the risk of the federal government not paying the incentive is yours — not the dealerships.”

That stipulation, advocates say, puts an unfair burden on the consumer, who might not have bought the vehicle without the promise of a clunkers rebate. “This is a new program,” said Shahan. “It’s complicated. It’s confusing. And you’re in the showroom relying on the dealer to help you through it.”

In some part, the troubles facing the clunkers’ program are symptoms of the program’s wild success. Launched precisely a month ago, the $3 billion initiative — which grants cash rebates up to $4,500 to drivers who scrap their gas guzzlers in favor of more efficient new vehicles — has stimulated more than 457,000 new auto sales, tallying $1.9 billion in dealer rebate applications. The White House, being careful not to outspend its allotment, has scheduled the program to end at 8 p.m. Monday.

But the sheer volume of applications ensures that the processing of payments will continue for weeks longer, if not months. Not expecting the deluge, the government was initially understaffed. Traffic to the CARS Web site has been so heavy at times that some dealers wait to log on at midnight, when the site might function faster. The combination of factors has caused government approvals to lag well behind voucher submissions. Indeed, of the $3 billion the DOT expects to spend on the clunkers program, the agency has paid out only $145 million to dealers, a senior administration official told reporters last Thursday. The slow pace of approvals has left both dealers and consumers to negotiate an uncomfortable limbo while they await the OK from federal screeners.

James Wang is in such a position. In mid-July, the Orlando accountant traded his 1993 Toyota Camry for a 2009 Honda Civic, getting a $4,500 clunkers rebate in the process. But the DOT altered some of the eligibility rules later in the month, disqualifying the Camry as a trade-in vehicle. The dealer asked Wang for either the $4,500 or the car, calling frequently, sending certified letters, and threatening to report the car as stolen if Wang didn’t comply. More recently the 28-year-old learned that, because he’d bought early in the program, his Camry would be eligible for the rebate.

The deal hasn’t gone through just yet, Wang said, but “instead of calling me every other day, at least they’ve stopped bothering me now.”

Many dealers have lost their patience, dropping out of the program altogether.

Bob Loquercio, owner of four Chicago area dealerships, said his experience with cash for clunkers has been “a giant nightmare.” His dealerships have sold 227 vehicles under the program, but so far he’s been reimbursed for only four. The government, he added, owes him “more than $1 million.”

“It’s a typical Obama administration, giant-government screw up,” said Loquercio, former chairman of the Chicago Automobile Trade Association.

For Anna Causey, of South Carolina, the future remains uncertain. She and her husband have hired an attorney in an effort to keep their new Dodge Ram. In the meantime, they’re still driving it around. “We own the truck,” she said.

Kris Whittemore, sales manager at Hoover Dodge in Moncks Ford, S.C., where the Causeys made their trade, declined to comment, his brief statement providing indication that the clunkers program still has a few kinks to be ironed out. “My take,” he said by phone Friday, “will be through my attorney.”

The official said the DOT has reviewed “just under 170,000″ of the 457,000 dealer submissions, but incomplete forms and other technical complications have slowed outgoing payments.

A large number of those [applications] are incomplete or have inaccurate information, and so the process when that happens is that the application is turned back to the dealer, and the Department of Transportation gives the dealer an opportunity to correct for those incomplete or inaccurate components, after which point they resubmit.

The delay is problematic to dealers, who effectively have to front the cash rebate (between $3,500 and $4,500) when they accept a clunker and let the customer drive off in a new vehicle. And it’s the dealer who’s on the line for that money if the trade for some reason doesn’t qualify for the federal rebate.

The Washington Post reported this morning that some dealers, growing impatient with the agency, have stopped participating in the program altogether.

“The overriding objective was to be conservative and to provide an adequate window for a soft landing [for consumers and dealers],” the official said.

Whether congressional defenders of the auto industry are ready to concede the end of this program — a boon to the automakers and dealers alike — has yet to be seen.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Thursday that after a wildly successful run, the cash for clunkers program will come to a close on Monday, August 24th at 8 p.m. EDT.

“This program has been a lifeline to the automobile industry, jump starting a major sector of the economy and putting people back to work,” Secretary LaHood said. “At the same time, we’ve been able to take old, polluting cars off the road and help consumers purchase fuel efficient vehicles.”

As of today, the CARS program has recorded more than 457,000 dealer transactions worth $1.9 billion in rebates.

For example, the Department should consider implementing a policy providing that all properly submitted vouchers will be reimbursed within five business days, and continue adding staff and devoting resources as needed to meet this timeline. By adopting such a guideline, dealers will be more willing to place their capital at risk to carry the cost of CARS vouchers until reimbursement, and more dealers will continue participating in the program, thereby maximizing the program’s objectives.

On Wednesday, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters that the agency is adding employees to process the voucher submissions, adding that, “There will be no car dealers that won’t be reimbursed.” Earlier in the week, the department revealed that dealers have already submitted more than 435,000 vouchers, worth roughly $1.8 billion, under the $3 billion program (though it’s still refusing to release the details of those sales.)

Although there will surely be political pressure to extend the program further next month, particularly from Michigan’s powerful delegation, reports this week indicate that the administration is already planning its exit strategy.

The Department of Transportation released figures Wednesday indicating that, as of yesterday morning, more than 316,000 new vehicles have been sold under the program, at a cost of $1.33 billion. The DOT has also released occasional top-10 lists of the best-selling models. But requests for more detailed information have been met with silence.

DOT spokeswoman Patricia Swift-Oladeinde said Wednesday that the agency simply hasn’t crunched those numbers.

Yet Lena Pons, policy analyst at Public Citizen, doubts that claim. “They have the information,” Pons said. “They have to have it to reimburse the dealers.”

Indeed, if the DOT has the data to compile top-10 lists, it surely knows also which models fill slots 11 through the rest. But, despite several Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the data (including one from Public Citizen), the administration is refusing to give up the details.

Those details could have significant consequences. When the Senate last week passed a $2 billion extension of the program, several powerful lawmakers threatened to fight the additional funding unless the guidelines were altered in favor of stricter mileage standards. But Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) — the three who led the push for better fuel efficiency rules — were convinced those changes were unnecessary after the DOT released summary data claiming that drivers were buying up small, highly efficient cars.

“What we’ve learned is that American consumers are choosing vehicles with much higher fuel efficiency than is required,” Feinstein said in a statement announcing her change of heart.

Yet there are indications that the program isn’t promoting the vehicle sales the DOT has claimed. Indeed, although the agency says the 10 best-selling vehicles under cash for clunkers are all small cars, a separate study by Edmunds.com, an auto analysis group, found that both the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado trucks have crept onto that list. The New York Times this week quoted an anonymous White House aide conceding that the program is one “in which you trade old clunkers for new clunkers.” Dealerships are reporting sales of Cadillac SRXs and Hummer H3Ts. And even Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said that, given the chance, he’d use the program to scoop up a Ford Explorer SUV, the 4WD version of which gets just 15 miles per gallon.

Considering the popularity of the program — both with consumers and the auto industry — there’s certain to be pressure on Congress to extend the program yet again if the extra $2 billion runs out quickly. Some lawmakers have hinged their support for additional funds on first getting a better understanding of what the program is doing. They can’t know the answer, however, if the administration continues to withhold the trade-in figures.