Bailout Watch 284: White House Promises GM and Chrysler TARP Funds
The Washington Post reports that President Bush has signalled (from Air Force One no less) that he will “consider using funds from other sources to provide emergency aid to the nation’s Big Three car companies following the Senate’s rejection Thursday night of a Congressional bailout plan.” This is a reversal of Bush’s previous insistence that the money for Motown’s Troubled Twosome (Ford’s maintaining its low profile) must come from the Department of Energy’s $25b “retooling” loan program, and follows Congress’ abortive efforts to scarf the funds. “Under normal economic conditions we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms,” the White House statement said. “However, given the current weakened state of the U.S. economy, we will consider other options if necessary — including use of the TARP program — to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers.”
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no_slushbox, When an ideological conservative like Thaddeus McCotter (who will be the next governor of Michigan) supports a bailout, it's not because the UAW is giving him money - the UAW has given McCotter's opponents. He supports a bailout because the supply chain is strategically vital. Wage and price controls have never worked. Not under FDR and not under Nixon. Meanwhile, the president of the SEIU, the largest public employee union in the country, had material knowledge that Blagojovich was playing eBay with a US Senate seat and did they turn him in? No, the SEIU official, when Blago solicited a bribe, replied, on tape, "put that flag up and see where it goes." That's at most a hair's breadth away from participating in a criminal conspiracy.
Bloomberg are reporting Wagoner and Cerberus' Stephen Feinberg in private talks with Bush and officials. If Feinberg has direct access to Bush in this situation, it's done. This gets sillier by the minute.