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Reid, Pelosi Urge Treasury to Extend Aid to AutomakersWith the nation's automotive industry hemorrhaging cash, congressional leaders called on the Bush administration yesterday to offer government assistance to the car companies as part of the Treasury Department's $700 billion emergency rescue program.The call came one day after General Motors, the nation's largest auto manufacturer, announced another multibillion dollar loss for the third quarter and said it was running out of money fast. Ford, the second-biggest car company, also reported heavy losses. Unless the government steps in, analysts warned, GM could face bankruptcy, endangering the livelihoods of about 100,000 North American autoworkers and hundreds of thousands of others whose jobs depend on the industry.In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) asked Paulson to "review the feasibility . . . of providing temporary assistance to the automobile industry during the current financial crisis."The letter notes that Congress granted Paulson broad discretion to use the bailout money to "restore financial market stability. A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market security," the letter continues, as well as to "the overall health of our economy, and the livelihood of the automobile sector's workforce."If the request is granted, it would expand the federal government's role in private enterprise far beyond the financial sector. Critics have warned that a bailout of GM would attract a long line of other companies to Washington to argue that their survival, too, is critical to the economic health of the country. The move would push the Bush administration to decide winners and losers in yet another huge sector of the economy, and it would force President-elect Barack Obama to manage a complex restructuring of the ailing automotive industry.The Treasury has so far declined to assist the automakers, which have been devastated by the twin shocks of a collapsing credit market and the sharpest drop in auto sales in more than two decades. But as the news from Detroit has grown increasingly grim, lawmakers from both parties, Michigan officials, auto industry executives and labor leaders have stepped up their campaign for federal aid.More
I hereby retract my support for the initial bailout. we should have let the recession burn. we lost the white house anyway, so what the hell?my apologies to hawkgirl, among others. she was right, and I was wrong.
Nah, let's just nationalize the entire ****ing economy. What a bunch of idiots. Bad business decisions made with YOUR money.
They should let the automakers file for bankruptcy protection and be done with it. They will re-organize and get back to business as usual. We don't need to keep bailing out private enterprises.
