Friday, November 27, 2009

Opinion

Bush Rescues the Automakers? Strange.

December 19, 2008 01:45 PM ET | Bonnie Erbe | Permanent Link | Print

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

OMG! President Bush has actually done something good. Finally! You know what they say about stopped clocks. Early today the Bush administration agreed to bail out the two worst-off of the Big Three automakers:

General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC will get $13.4 billion in initial government loans to keep operating in exchange for a restructuring under a rescue plan announced by President George W. Bush.

A bankruptcy is unlikely to work for the automakers at this time and can't be allowed, Bush said at the White House.

"These are not ordinary circumstances," Bush said at the White House. "In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action."

Stranger things have happened. But rarely.

Tags: General Motors | George W. Bush | Chrysler | car manufacturers

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Reader Comments

He only moved it forward...

I agree completely...

Without arguing the pros and cons of the $17B bailout (I opposed it, by the way), do you feel it was done only to get the "Big Two" into 2009 so Obama can handle the issue or does the wording of the bailout amount to a time bomb with impossible terms that come due on 3/31/09? A third possibility would be that GM and Chrysler successfully make hard changes and turn the company around by 3/31/09...

Just curious.

He only moved it forward

For Obama to handle.

He only moved it forward

For Obama to handle.

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About Bonnie Erbe

Bonnie Erbe is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report and hosts PBS's weekly news analysis program, To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe. She also writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column for Scripps Howard News Service.

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