Cash For Clunkers Senate Vote: 60 To 37

The approval follows a heated attempt by various Senators to crash the program. Senator. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had offered an amendment that would limit the cars for clunker rebates to individuals with annual incomes of $50,000 or less. Republican Senators threw their support behind the Harkin amendment, requiring Democrats that mostly favored the amendment, to vote against it.

Had the amendment had passed, the House of Representatives would have had to take up their approval of the cash for clunkers continuation bill again. Since House members have already adjourned for their August recess, the money would be stalled for the next few weeks.

Democratic leaders scrambled this evening to get top party Senators to vote against the amendment to the cash for clunkers additional funding. In the end, Senators voted to table the Harkin amendment 65-32, largely along party lines. The move drew criticism from the GOP.

"It does seem to be out of character for Democrats to support allowing millionaires access to borrowed money to buy cars," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY.
Democratic leaders have expressed the same urgency as their House counterparts in getting the bill passed. "We all know that if we change the (cash for clunkers) bill, it will die," Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters today. "We are going to do everything we can to stop that."