Car lots across America emptied last week as the federal "cash for clunkers," officially the Car Allowance Rebate System, spun through $1 billion by giving people up to $4,500 if they would trade in a gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient vehicle. The churn of cars was so hard and fast the Department of Transportation had to shut down the program because it was going to quickly run out of cash.

Congress now wants to put $2 billion more into the clunker-buying business.

The motivation behind the CARS program is to push-start American car buying and reduce the number of gas guzzlers on the highway. While it had varying degrees of success on both fronts, the most profound effect will be to add $3 billion to the national debt. Taxpayers bailed out of bankruptcy two of America's major automobile manufacturers earlier this year, to the tune of hundreds of millions, and now are being asked to front a fire sale at dealerships with taxpayers' dollars. Got you coming and going, Mr. Taxpayer.

It's not like taxpayers, via the federal government, can cover the cost of these green rebates. It's money borrowed in their name debt. And it's debt that's growing at a remarkable rate.

Talk of raising federal taxes has begun. Several members of the Obama administration, based on the accelerated growth of federal expenditures and reduced tax revenues, have pointed to the need to raise taxes. President Obama, however, continues to say there will be no new taxes on those who earn less than $250,000.

CARS certainly was a catalyst for closing the deals at dealerships that have been bogged down in a national economic meltdown that included the bailout of GM and Chrysler. The CARS program put stimulus money into local economies faster than any other program this year. Automakers say sales are up. But analysts say CARS rode "pent-up demand,"and many people were ready to buy, with or without a federal incentive. It's not clear how much financial good was accomplished.

The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the increase in miles per gallon, based on the clunker trade-in, was a net gain of 10 mpg. That's something. But it's not particularly dramatic, and it's only reflected in the number of vehicles in the CARS program and not in the exponentially greater number of vehicles on U.S. highways today. It represents a drop in the bucket in reducing CO2 emissions overall.

As the smog begins to clear, it's become increasingly obvious that the growing national debt will become as big a problem for U.S. taxpayers as was Fannie, Freddy and Wall Street combined. Three billion dollars has become chump change and the chump may be us.