Bailout Watch 67: House of Reps Votes Aye

by Robert Farago

Published: September 24th, 2008

bailout watch 67 house of reps votes aye

Automotive News [AN, sub] reports that the U.S. House of Representatives have passed a bill which includes authorization for $25b in federal low-interest loans for Detroit. The legislation, originally designed to help Detroit automakers retool 20-year-old-plus factories to build automobiles that are 25 percent more fuel efficient than similar models, cleared the Reps by a margin of 370 to 58. The Senate will rubber stamp the bill– whose main purpose is to keep government running in the new fiscal year that begins Octover first– by the weekend. President Bush is expected to sign it next week. And before that’s done, Detroit’s minions will do everything in their power to get their hands on the cash and subvert Congress’ original intent for the bailout billions. As AN puts it, “The final version of the bill is expected to include language that would speed the issuance of the loans and the adoption of rules by the Department of Energy that would govern their use, said John Bozzella, Chrysler LLC’s vice president of global external affairs and public policy.” Meanwhile Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was over the friggin’ moon. “Some critics will call this loan package a bailout,” the Michigan democrats statement admitted. “It is not. These loans amount to a little more than 1 percent of the real bailout — the one that the Bush administration wants for Wall Street at a cost of $700 billion to taxpayers.” So it’s not a bailout that’s less than the other bailout. Makes sense to me.

Robert Farago

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4 of 16 comments

Geotpf on Sep 25, 2008
USAFMech : September 24th, 2008 at 8:52 pm Does anyone know the bill number? I’d like to find out how he voted and contact my rep. Also, I’d like to give my Senator a head’s up that this is b-a-d. The problem is is that it seems to be attached to a unrelated must-pass omnibus spending bill. That is, Congressmen who vote for this, for the most part, aren't actually voting for this specifically-they are voting to keep the lights on and prevent a government shutdown.

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Netrun on Sep 25, 2008

If we had anything but a spend-and-spend president, then he'd use the set of raisins he was born with and scratch off the $25B with his line-item veto powers.

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Melllvar on Sep 25, 2008
USAFMech: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll632.xml

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Geotpf on Sep 25, 2008
netrun : September 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pm If we had anything but a spend-and-spend president, then he’d use the set of raisins he was born with and scratch off the $25B with his line-item veto powers. The president does not have the ability to line-item veto things. There was an attempt to give it to him, but it was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. He has the choice to sign the whole thing or veto the whole thing, that's it.

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