We're shocked, absolutely shocked, to find out that the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers plan financed by the government didn't exactly produce the desired results.

Who would think a $3 billion, somewhat hastily created federal government program would have loopholes?

According to an analysis of federal data, the most common transaction involved owners of Ford F150 pickups, who traded their old gas-guzzling trucks for . . . new gas-guzzling Ford F150s. The new models did, however, get better gas mileage than the old vehicles between 1 mpg and 3 mpg better. The same scenario played out thousands of times involving old Chevrolet and Dodge trucks as well.

The worst finding in the study was that $562,500 was spent in rebates for new cars and trucks that had worse or the same mileage as the trade-in, which, of course, would be in violation of the entire idea behind Cash for Clunkers. The government said it is investigating.

Overall, the study showed the average fuel economy of the trade-ins was 15.8 mpg, while the mileage for the new vehicles was 24.9 mpg, which fits the alleged purpose of the program to get older, low mpg vehicles off the road and replace them with new, more fuel-efficient models. But there were also thousands of transactions that involved nothing more than old, low-mpg vehicles being traded in for new, low-mpg vehicles with the help of government vouchers.

The program did stimulate the highly unionized auto industry, with sales of $15.2 billion at 19,000 dealerships across all 50 states. But that wasn't supposed to the the program's purpose. Or was it?