Bailout Watch 274: GM's Call to Action to Its Dealerships

by Robert Farago

December 10th, 2008 8:34 AM

Date:12/10/2008Ref. number:Leadership Messages / Leadership Messages / Corporate-Global / Corporate-Global / G_0000017224Subject:

Dear GM Dealership Employees:

We are at a critical juncture in our efforts to get Congress and the current administration to provide federal loans to domestic auto manufacturers to help bridge our nation’s economic crisis. Your support in the form of phone calls is urgently needed in the next few hours as a number of Republican Senators are threatening to block the vote on the Auto Rescue Bill recently announced.

If you are located in the states listed below, please contact your legislators by calling 866 874-9356 and remind them that dealership employees in their districts are counting on them for their support and leadership. Additionally, please share the hotline number with family, friends, business partners or other contacts in these states and ask them to call their Members of Congress immediately. Talking points and other materials to assist these calls can be found at www.gmfactsandfiction.com.

Your efforts to call legislators have been crucial in getting us to this point. Please urge everyone you know in these key states to place their phone calls in the next few hours and remind legislators that their vote is about the survival of America’s auto industry and they will be held accountable for job losses in their states.

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Jason Lombard on Dec 10, 2008

@ OldDavid: I will always support anything that floats all boats. That scenario doesn't exist. And again, to reiterate, I'm with RF. There is no hate here for the D3. Just contempt for what they've become. I do believe that 2 outta the 3 (sorry Chrysler) can emerge from bankruptcy as leaner and more focused companies.

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Jkross22 on Dec 10, 2008

@y2kdcar and oldDavid: Please read Buickman's articles for insight as to why so many TTAC readers loathe the profound incompetence at the D3. Giving (and that's what this is) them money is simply perpetuating the foolishness, not fixing any of the problems.

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Geotpf on Dec 10, 2008
olddavid : December 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am Let me get this straight-700 BILLION, and not a peep from 535 representatives of the people-15 and we’ve got a discussion group. Um, the financial bailout failed the first time around, remember? Then the market dropped another thousand points in three days, the Congressional leadership piled every single special project the naysayers wanted into the bill, and it passed the second time. Plus, then, the roadblock was in the House. This time, it's in the Senate. It's a lot easier to ram something through the House than in the Senate-by design. Another thing is that there are banks in every single state in the country. There are domestic auto plants in only a handful-and almost as many states have plants from foreign companies. Maybe more, in fact, since the foreign companies are building new plants and the domestic ones are closing plants-especially those far from Detroit. Do you think GM's closure of the only auto plant in the state of Okalahoma two years ago made OK's two Senators happy to bail them out? Toyota et al have been buying Senators two at a time for years, with each plant opening in a new state. The management of the Detroit automakers are too stupid to realize that closing plants far from Detroit, while good from a supply-chain standpoint, is a horrible political move.

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928sport on Dec 11, 2008

For all you bleeding hearts out there that think we should bail these loser's out,why don't you just send a check to GM or who ever and get a jump on this.I am sure you would not be turned down.I always wonder why people who support these kind of things have to be forced into it,just step up and do the right thing and I am sure your life will be better for it.

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