Can anyone explain to me how cash for clunkers was a good thing?

It wasn't. Do you know that many of those so called "clunkers" had 50,000 miles or less on them? Many of them had good tires and running gear, and some still had engines in them that were running well, but yet the engines in those vehicles were destroyed. We have people, in this country, who would have given their right arm to own one of those "clunkers" that were deliberately destroyed. Just another example of our political stupidity! It was a terrible waste. Those vehicles should have gone to needy families instead of being broken up and ending up on a landfill.