John Thune

Posted: August 25th 2009

Keloland News Reports:

The brakes have been put on the Cash for Clunkers program and now a group of Senators is asking the Department of Transportation where is all the money?  Of the $3 billion Congress appropriated for the program, only $140 million has been paid out to dealers for their sales.

Eight Republican Senators, including South Dakota Senator John Thune, are asking the Department of Transportation to provide weekly reports on the total amount it's giving back to dealers participating in the Cash for Clunkers program. They also want to know the average time it takes to reimburse dealers and the number of Cash for Clunker sales denied.

It's all an effort to make sure dealerships aren't stuck with the cost of the program while they wait for their check from the government.

Car dealers across South Dakota have held up their end of the Cash for Clunkers deal, selling thousands of cars over the past month. But now they're waiting for the government to live up to its promises.

"All I can tell you is we've heard from a lot of dealers that this thing is not working. It's really been screwed up and I think some didn't participate in it in the first place for that reason," Senator John Thune said.

Thune is one of eight Republican Senators who wants to know why the wheels of the Cash for Clunkers program are turning so slowly and why the government isn't following the law. Under the program, the government has just ten days to re-pay dealers for their sales.

"It seems to me that at least once it's enacted and once it's operating that it ought to be done in a fashion that would allow dealers who participate to be able to at least get paid for being in the program," Thune said.

Thune believes South Dakota dealers will eventually get what they're owed, but doesn't think it's fair they have to carry the cost of a backlogged government program.

"If you are doing it on a large scale and you have high volume to start with, maybe you can absorb it, but if you're a smaller dealer that's trying to participate in this program and you extend this credit to people who come in and buy cars and then you're sitting there waiting for reimbursement it becomes a real financial strain," Thune said. ...