The final accounting on the "Cash for Clunkers" incentive program is a fascinating illustration of what will certainly become a classic study of the impact of "policy wonk" legislation passed in haste and producing unintended consequences.

There were shrill claims that the legislation would produce jobs in the auto industry and simultaneously contribute to climate-change improvement.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has already pronounced it the most successful stimulus, except it is now apparent that the sales were entirely "borrowed" from succeeding months. No jobs were really created or saved.

Climate-change impact? Indiscernible.

Cost? About $2,000 in taxpayer funds for every transaction.

Bureaucracy? Over the three months of the program, the bureaucracy grew by 5,000 temporary employees to process fewer than 750,000 payments requiring no less than 19 documents for each transaction.

It was also agreed that this would certainly work—it had been tried in...