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Yesterday, I confronted outgoing General Motors CEO Dan Akerson, the speaker at a National Press Club luncheon. At a press conference beforehand, and through the first question at the conclusion of his remarks, I requested that GM repay taxpayers the $10 billion in direct GM bailout costs. Akerson's refusal dominated much of the media coverage of the event. This was clearly not the story line that Akerson intended. In short, we happily stepped all over his message that the bailout is a success and that GM is back. The USA Today/Detroit Free Press story is headlined. "GM's CEO rejects repaying...

I made these remarks today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC before the luncheon speech of outgoing General Motors CEO Dan Akerson: President Obama justified the auto bailout by predicting it would make money for the taxpayer. With Treasury now selling its remaining shares, the direct loss is about $10 billion. So on its most fundamental level, the auto bailout is a failure. But that $10 billion figure dramatically understates the true cost. There were separate multibillion dollar bailouts of Ally Financial, formerly know as GMAC, and Delphi and other suppliers. There was cash for clunkers, the government...

Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), today posed key questions to the General Motors leadership at a National Press Club press conference, including whether the company will repay to taxpayers the $10 billion direct cost of the GM bailout. News that the U.S. Treasury Department has sold its remaining stake and that Mary Barra will take over as GM's new CEO have put the spotlight on the company and its future. GM executives have pointed to GM's $26.8 billion in cash as evidence of its improved financial position. Analysts have raised the possibility that the...

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who remains as determined as ever to substitute Obama administration talking points for the truth, gave it her best effort in yesterday’s session before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. It was an underwhelming performance at best. As key dates approach and more facts about the government overhaul of the health care system emerge, it is becoming apparent that the ObamaCare scheme is headed for structural disaster — and will take tens of millions of Americans with it. [SNIP] All of the above, including anemic enrollment numbers for private insurance while Medicaid...

Consider a country where banking interests balloon debt by lending to people who cannot possibly pay back their loans. These toxic assets then threaten to destroy the national economy. Banking interests plead with the civil government to rescue them for the sake of the economy. The civil government bails them out with taxpayer money. Sound familiar? Well, that’s where the similarities end between the banking crisis in Iceland which began in 2008, and the banking crisis that occurred in the States a year earlier.Taxpayers in Iceland didn’t just sit back and allow the bail out. They thronged the streets banging...

General Motors (GM) tapped products chief Mary Barra to become the auto maker's first female CEO, taking the keys from current chief Dan Akerson who will step down ahead of schedule in January. The promotion of Barra instantly makes her the most powerful woman in Detroit and one of the most influential in corporate America. The move comes just hours after the Treasury Department exited its ownership of GM following the auto bailouts of 2008 and 2009.

The U.S. government sold its last shares of automaker General Motors Co (GM) on Monday, marking an end to a historic bailout of one of America's most storied companies. The sale leaves taxpayers short about $10 billion of the funds that the Treasury sank into the automaker in 2009. GM recorded a profit of $4.3 billion for the first nine months of this year. The bailout was hugely controversial. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called it "crony capitalism."

Couldn't we just as easily say "GM has now repaid every taxpayer dollar the previous Administration committed to its rescue, plus billions invested by my Administration?" Via WhiteHouse.gov: When I took office, the American auto industry – the heartbeat of American manufacturing – was on the verge of collapse.  Two of the Big Three – GM and Chrysler – were on the brink of failure, threatening to take suppliers, distributors and entire communities down with them.  In the midst of what was already the worst recession since the Great Depression, another one million Americans were in danger of losing their...

One of the major architects of the General Motors bankruptcy process, Harry Wilson, recently gave a very optimistic outlook for GM future share price. Mr. Wilson was a member of President Obama's Auto Task Force, and was an instrumental player in seeing that UAW interests were put ahead of other creditors, like old GM bondholders. Automotive News now reports that Mr. Wilson feels that GM may be a target for activists because of their "huge" cash hoard. According to the piece: "Any company that isn't efficient about capital allocation is a target for activists," said Wilson, who is now a...

The public overwhelmingly opposes any ObamaCare bailout of the insurance industry, the latest IBD/TIPP Poll found, even as the Obama administration is paving the way to do just that. The survey found that 65% oppose a federal bailout of insurance companies that find their profits hit because not enough young, healthy people sign up for ObamaCare plans. Opposition is widespread, the poll of 907 adults found, with 51% of Democrats, 71% of Republicans and 76% of independents against it. It's opposed by every age and demographic group as well. Although few people knew about it until recently, the health law...

"....Starting in January, insurers will be forced to offer coverage to individuals suffering from pre-existing conditions. When drafting the legislation, lawmakers wanted to make sure that individual insurers didn’t worry about getting stuck with a disproportionate share of very sick enrollees with high medical costs. If that were to happen, it could motivate insurers to attempt to manipulate plan offerings so as to “cherry pick” the healthier participants. So lawmakers included several provisions to guard against this possibility, one being the risk corridors. A simple way of explaining the risk corridors program is that it requires insurers to estimate their...

Federal Meddling: Remember the promise that taxpayers would get back every dollar taken from them and dumped into the General Motors bailout? The promise is coming up about $10 billion short. All told, GM ended up with some $50 billion in direct cash, loans and bankruptcy aid. The bailout began with $13.4 billion from President Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Program and was topped off with another $30.1 billion in May 2009. The Obama administration provided a full $36 billion of the total. The beleaguered American taxpayer was supposed to be paid back in full, but that won't be happening. Last...

A top Senate Republican is blasting regulations he argues will exempt unions' multi-employer health plans from a key tax under ObamaCare. Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.) pointed to a section of a 255-page regulatory filing and said it would amount to a "bailout" for the labor moment, which has grown increasingly dissatisfied with the new healthcare law. "Despite endorsing ObamaCare and working fervently to get it passed, unions are now experiencing the ugly reality of this law, and they want out. This exemption is crony capitalism at its worst," said Thune, who is behind a bill to block...

It appears the time has finally come for the Obama Administration to end taxpayers' forced investment in General Motors. Reports continue to roll in that Treasury is expected to sell its remaining stake by year-end . Of course, the news will be trumpeted as a great success by those responsible for the heist that cost taxpayers (along with creditors and shareholders of old GM) billions of dollars. The final figures confirming how taxpayers fared will have to wait for the closing tally, but the estimated loss to those who footed the GM bailout bill is in the $10 billion...

Bloomberg, link only: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-21/obamacare-bailout-sought-as-effort-planned-to-bypass-site.html

Warning that the latest ObamaCare "fix" could compel the federal government to bail out insurance companies, Republican senators have introduced a bill to prevent taxpayer funds from being used to prop up the industry. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., along with a half-dozen other Republican senators, introduced the "ObamaCare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act" on Tuesday. It would strip a provision in the Affordable Care Act pertaining to so-called "risk corridors," which could allow the government to pay insurance companies to offset financial losses. Rubio calls it a "blank check" for the industry. "The idea that the federal government should be bailing...

The rollout of Obamacare has been "absolutely chaotic," said Tommy Thompson, who served as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under George W. Bush. But worse, he added, the new law is flawed and needs dramatic changes. "It's actuarially unsound," the former Republican governor of Wisconsin said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "If you don't have the healthy young people involved, ... Obamacare cannot function. It's going to require a huge infusion of tax dollars or huge cuts." One of the cornerstones of the new health-care law is that healthy young people will pay for medical insurance that they...

This must have been one of those backroom deals we heard so much about… Stuffed inside the Obamacare law passed by Democrats (with no Republican votes) is a provision that will reimburse insurance companies up to 80% of their losses due to Obamacare. Melissa Francis reported on FOX News: “Marco Rubio has been out highlighting the fact that there is this ‘risk corridor’ where written into this law that nobody read is this idea that is insurance companies have 3% higher costs than they estimated as a result of who’s in these pools, they can recoup 50% of that money...

Health insurance companies could see higher government payments because of President Obama's administrative move to address the criticism over canceled health plans. White House spokesman Jay Carney suggested Friday that federal health officials would raise payments to insurance companies should the policy shift bring on unexpected costs. "If the costs are higher, then [the Department of Health and Human Services] can mitigate those costs with insurers," Carney said at a briefing.

Excellent catch by Chris Jacobs at Heritage. If you read the post about Rubio’s anti-bailout bill, you already know what “risk corridor” means. -snip- So are insurance company executives, of course; they’re meeting with Obama today to express their “concern.” So here’s a pot-sweetener for them from CMS in the nick of time: If they decide to un-cancel some plans and end up taking a beating financially from the adverse selection that results, Uncle Sam will be there to make everything right. I must have read three dozen blog posts yesterday wondering how O would be able to keep insurers...