No More Money to "Cash for Clunkers!"

I heard this morning that Congress is considering two options with regard to the wildly successful CARS program: 1) Let the $1 billion run out and end the program, or 2) add another $2 billion. Please, please, please, do not add any more money to the program. Try something different that might help a different group of people. We got rid of our family friendly Chevy Suburban last summer when the gasoline prices were inching up toward $5.00 per gallon. We leased a 2009 Dodge Journey, and it is delivering on it's claim of 20 m.p.g. average. That part, I like, but the thing that is killing us is that there is no room for my husband and I and our four kids to travel comfortably. We can't even go on a weekend trip because there is absolutely no cargo room. Using a rooftop carrier made sense when I made my trip from Northern Virginia to Indiana, but now that we are living back in Indiana all of our relatives are closer so weekend visits are possible--except the rooftop carrier is so cumbersome and my husband hates it. As a result, we have not traveled anywhere that would require an overnight stay. It was quite a trick to get all of us shoved into the Journey with a picnic basket and a container of cookies for a family reunion this past weekend, bags for overnight stays are not possible!
What I would propose to Congress is to tell the struggling, rather lazy and whiny "big three" automakers is this: "The first one of you to develop a family-sized vehicle that is not a mini-van, that has comfortable seating for seven and that has cargo room for a family of six's gear, AND uses an alternative fuel or is a hybrid, that people can actually afford, get the $2 billion! Go! Go use that good old American ingenuity we used to have. Be creative! Do something great! Do something that is actually going to make a difference! That would be my suggestion. Everything so far has just been throwing money everywhere without any vision, without any inspiration or creativity. Come on Congress, do something that is really useful, and radical, and helpful!