That’s how Business Week reports it. More GovernmentSpeak.

“This program has been a lifeline to the automobile industry, jump-starting a major sector of the economy and putting people back to work,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “At the same time, we’ve been able to take old, polluting cars off the road and help consumers purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.”

This is a description of the raving success.

The Transportation Dept. is halting the program because the agency estimates that most of the funding is spoken for, though it has only been able to process fewer than 200,000 transactions. Indeed, the clunkers rebates proved to be a massive headache for many dealers, which had to grant the discounts and then wait for the government to process claims for payment to the dealerships. Dealer filings swamped the Transportation Dept.’s ability to process them. The agency’s Web site suffered frequent crashes, and 40% of the transactions have been returned because of filing errors and must be re-submitted.

The system got so backlogged the Transportation Dept. is sure the $3 billion is almost entirely accounted for despite the fact that the agency has paid out less than $150 million so far to dealers. Hundreds of temporary public and private-sector workers have been added to the agency’s rolls to finish the job.

The Transportation Dept. said $1.9 billion of the money has been claimed so far, through 457,000 transactions. But it estimated dealers are likely sitting on an additional $400 million in deals that have yet to be submitted.

A senior White House propagandist said the ‘Clunkers’ program is the “most efficient piece of economic stimulus done to date.”