Say about three months, or so.

That’s when “cash for clunkers” should be revisited, to weigh its success or failure as a policy. As a government program, it’s an absolute smash, as U.S. consumers and automobile dealers burned through $3 billion in taxpayer dollars faster than AIG planning a weekend retreat.

As a policy, though, its reverberations for the American economy are still to be felt. Real concern should remain that the clunker incentive has pushed people into buying cars they cannot afford, through the assumption of new, burdensome debt.

Also of concern is the acceleration of demand that clunkers caused within the sagging U.S. automotive industry, and what happens now, sans the promotion. After the frenzied saturation caused by clunkers, there could be a steep drop in the market for new cars.

If so, the nascent progress made by the government in nudging General Motors and Chrysler from bankruptcy could be interrupted or, worse, stalled. One of the primary reasons justifying the government intervention in these companies is that their economic impact is vast, felt in just about every state.

Policymakers, especially those who enthusiastically endorsed the clunkers program, should keep close tabs on its effects during the coming months, as we will. A scenario where the American automotive market slows like “a letdown after a sugar high,” as the AP put it, could pose significant problems.

Especially if Congress insists on overturning plans to shutter thousands of car dealerships across the country, as planned by both GM and Chrysler. While these plans are regrettable, keeping dealerships running when demand may tank, and supplies of vehicles may thin, would be shortsighted. (Many observers think the formula for success for American carmakers is, ironically, making fewer cars, to reduce manufacturing costs, keep retail prices stable and shrink the dealer network.)

Cash for clunkers will have some short-term positives. It will get some older, inefficient vehicles off the road. It should boost an otherwise miserable year for American automobile dealers. And it will provide government with revenue from excise and sales taxes, which should prevent new increases.

It was still a high-risk initiative, though, a giveaway swaddled in rhetoric about energy efficiency and foreign oil dependence. This was a program developed to sell cars, and sell cars it certainly did — some 800,000 in little over a month, a frenetic pace.

What happens next is crucial. Will clunkers buoy dealers and automakers through rough economic times, or will it undo fledgling work done to return sustainability to the industry? Right now, everybody is counting the money, dealers for what’s been sold, consumers for what’s now owed, and government for what it spent.

Calculating the real cost of clunkers, though, comes later.

[email protected]