Responding to the wide popularity of the Cash for Clunkers program, the Senate followed the House of Representatives and passed an additional $2 billion for the program which gives new car buyers up to $4,500 when they trade in their older vehicles for more fuel-efficient models.

The Senate passed the extension with a 60 to 37 vote. Fifty one Democrats, seven Republicans and the body's two independents voted for the additional funding. Thirty three Republicans and four Democrats voted against it. (Note: This graph has been corrected. See note below.)

The Obama Administration had warned that the program, which received $1 billion in initial funding, was in danger of being suspended if the new money wasn't approved. So popular to consumers was the idea of getting free money from the government upon the purchase of a car that the $1 billion was just about exhausted just days after the program officially began last week.

 

Supporters pointed to the public's generally positive response to the program as well as the way it has pumped up car dealer and manufacturer sales as nothing else has done in recent years. The program is being credited with giving car makers their best sales periods in recent memory.

But Republicans and some Democrats raised concerns about Cash for Clunkers, as have some economists. Critics said the program needlessly added to already mushrooming federal deficits.

Economists who are down on the program also have questioned whether it only spurred purchases that would have happened a few months to a year later. And they question the utility of taking functioning, if older, vehicles and trading them for newer, albeit more fuel efficient, ones.

That last argument makes a lot of sense to me. I drive a 1998 Ford Explorer (Explorers top the list of vehicles that are traded in) which I'm loathe to give up since it still gets around pretty well and gets good grades from my mechanics.

Whatever happened to all those complaints about Detroit building in obsolescence in its cars? It seems like an 11-year old Explorer with more than 100,000 miles that still runs well is exactly the kind of car we, back in the 1980s, clamored for Detroit's automakers to build.

A report on All Things Considered focused on such questions.

Nevertheless, when voters like something as much as they like Cash for Clunkers, you can almost always rest assured that Congress will give the people what they want.

Correction at 7:30 a.m., Aug. 7: According to Senate.gov, seven Republicans crossed the aisle to join the majority of Democrats in supporting the measure (Alexander of Tennessee, Bond of Missouri, Brownback of Kansas, Collins of Maine, Corker of Tennessee, Snowe of Maine and Voinovich of Ohio). Four Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in opposing it (Leahy of Vermont, McCaskill of Missouri, Nelson of Nebraska and Warner of Virginia). Three senators, all Democrats, did not vote (Byrd of West Virginia, Kennedy of Massachusetts and Mikulski of Maryland). We had an incorrect breakdown in this post earlier, but have now corrected it.