By JIM BARON

EAST PROVIDENCE — Paul Masse has sold 80 new cars at his Taunton Avenue Chevrolet dealership alone as part of the federal government's hugely successful but highly controversial Cash for Clunkers program that began last week.

Added to the other cars he sold, that number boosted his sales for the month of July by between 30 and 40 percent over the previous July, and now for the first time he believes he will end this recession-plagued year selling even more cars than he did last year at his three locations — East Providence, Woonsocket and Wakefield.
“When the federal government makes money available,” Masse said yesterday, “the American people are smart people. They know how to use it. Rhode Island customers are benefiting greatly.
“The customers know what they are doing,” Masse told reporters, “they don't need to be told. They know exactly what car they want when they come in here.
People are responding to the Cash for Clunkers deal, which is funded as part of President Barack Obama's federal stimulus package, “because they get the feeling they are getting a good deal.”
For hundreds of thousands of people across the country, it is a good deal.
If they trade in their old gas-guzzling (less than 18 miles per gallon) vehicles for a new car, they can get a voucher from the federal government for between $3,500 and $4,500, depending on the difference between the miles per gallon of the car they turned in and the new one they bought. If the new car gets 10 miles per gallon more than the old one, customers get a $4,500 voucher, if the difference between the two is less than 10 miles, they are eligible for a $3,500 voucher.
But the Cash for Clunkers program, officially called the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), has a big problem: it is too successful.
So many people took the opportunity to get the significant discount on a new car, that the program threatened to burn through the $1 billion that was allocated for it in barely more than a week.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation last week that reallocated an additional $2 billion to continue the program, but that bill is threatening to bog down in the Senate, where it faces opposition from Republicans and some of the chamber's more conservative Democrats, the so-called Blue Dog Democrats.
Congressmen Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin were at Masse's East Providence location Tuesday to rouse support for the extra funding.
Kennedy said the “Cash for Clunkers bill has been such a success, it demands us to extend it. I has spurred billions and billions of dollars in private funds because it has leveraged just a few thousand federal dollars in order to get people out” to buy automobiles, pumping thousands upon thousands of their own money into the economy in a “buying spree at some of these auto dealers that were really held up by the credit crunch we saw earlier in the recession.
The program has produced what Kennedy called “a trifecta” of benefits: spurring the economy and particularly the beleaguered auto industry, lessening the country's dependence on foreign oil by replacing many of the older cars on the road with new, more fuel-efficient models, and helping clean the air of auto tailpipe emissions.
“This is a win-win-win,” the Portsmouth Democrat said.
But, Kennedy warned, “there are some reports that the Republican caucus in the Senate is mounting some opposition” to the allocation of the extra $2 billion, “and that is concerning given the fact that this has been such a winner economically and has spurred so many jobs and such a great impetus to get our auto dealers back on track after the difficult time they have had in the past.
He recommended getting traditional Republican constituencies such as chambers of commerce and automobile dealers to lobby in favor of the additional $2 billion. The Senate is scheduled to adjourn for its August recess on Friday.
Besides the vouchers they get toward the purchase of the new car, Kennedy said, customers will probably save about $1,000 a year in gasoline.
Langevin called Cash for Clunkers “an outstanding stimulus program,” that is “already having real positive effects.
“Obviously, our economy is in very challenging times right now, it is the worst economy since the Great Depression,” the 2nd District representative said. “Job One right now has to be creating jobs. It's first and foremost in my mind...and we are pursuing all avenues possible to create jobs, get our economy back on track, get people back to work. With a 12.4 percent unemployment rate in Rhode Island, we can not stop working to get our economy back on track.”
If the Senate approves the $2 billion extension, Langevin said, it can extend the program for several weeks. He said he spoke with Rhode Island Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse this week and reported that they are cautiously optimistic the bill will pass the Senate.
The cars that are traded in have to be destroyed, Masse explained. The oil is drained out an a solution of sodium silicate is poured into the engine, which causes it to seize up and become useless. The vehicles are then sold for scrap, where body parts like doors and fenders can be salvaged for sale.