Posted on 12/12/2008 7:04:08 AM PST by meandog
Bush changes mind, may save auto giants
Facing the potential bankruptcy of iconic American firms, President Bush on Friday abandoned his longstanding objection to using using the Wall Street bailout fund to help save G.M., Ford and Chrysler.
A frustrated Republican congressional official said: "If only they had said this last week, we could have saved ourselves a full week."
Ten hours after the Senate rejected a separate lifeline for the automakers, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement it would be "irresponsible" to let the companies crash. So she said Bush will "consider other options," including the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program that Congress created for the Treasury Department in October.
"Under normal economic conditions we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms," Perino said in a statement. "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. A precipitous collapse of this industry would have a severe impact on our economy, and it would be irresponsible to further weaken and destabilize our economy at this time."
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
You are forgiven. We were all suckers. Never again for me. It is going to be a tough few years.
We're talking about approx $14 billion, right? We've already spent or allocated trillions in the course of attempting to fight this economic melt down. The amount likely to be funneled to the automakers is a small percentage of this and is already sitting in a cookie jar on Bush's desk, thanks to Paulson's "the world is going to end" TARP plan, now revised and modified many times. They don't know what to do with it. Some was used to directly inject capital and buy stakes in financial institutions when Paulson went to Plan "B" but the rest is there asking to be spent.
Symbolically, of course there's lots of room for indignation in the fact that Bush is probably going to, in effect, veto his own party, but financially, this is a non-issue really.
I’m convinced he’s drinking again.
Same here. They use union labor and when that socialist setup fails they want the capitalists to give them money.
I am SO TIRED of Bush and his betrayals of conservatives!
The only reason he got away with it for as long as he did was that REAL conservatives were given no other choice.
But now, we have SARAH! So El Presidente Jorge Arbusto can take a walk, and be thankful the DemoRATS were too weak to impeach.
Bush, America’s greatest Socialist president
There are probably too many of them for JR to keep track of. ;)
I think what is called for is a bit more tolerance for opposing points of view. I run a forum where libs and cons get along famously and have since 2005. Friendships have even been formed. You don’t have to agree on everything or compromise your belief systems but you can always express your POV with basic respect to the other guy’s. Let the free marketplace of ideas reign.
Just as in a typical church there are people who are mature in their faith and people who are newbies and people who come who don’t know the Lord at all. If you alienate the newbies and the people who aren’t sure where they stand but are looking for more information then you are really just arrogantly tooting your own horn and it’s obvious to everyone that the real problem is EGO.
If his proposal requires structural changes in the way the Big 3 does business and it breaks the stranglehold the UAW has on the Big 3, it will ultimately be the BEST thing for the American automobile industry. Frankly, I don't see WHY UAW workers should be making almost double what the folks building Japanese cars in the US are making. They certainly aren't putting out cars that are twice as good.
Yup.
Bush changes mind? I thought he was always behind the ‘bail out’ of the UAW, er, I mean the auto companies.
“Yargghh why is GWB peeing in the punch?”
I see see the following choices.
1. He’ a natural born traitor like his dad...remember his no new taxes pledge and resigning from the NRA.
2. He’s been show the light by his new brother Billy C.
3. There’s a possibility that my wife likes, liquor and religion make for some strange decisions. He’s drinking again?
4. Finally there’s the possibility, since Texas has Kay Bailey Hutchison, that Texas Republicans are really wussies, excuse me dumbocrats.
5. He’s was born a New England Yankee, an Ivy League grad. and became a carpetbagger. It’s hard to trust a carpetbagger.
Combined they yield, a putz.
LOL...bad credit risk? That didn’t stop the banks from loaning millions and millions to ‘bad credit risks’ for home loans. Isn’t that what got us in this mess in the first place? And wasn’t it the gubmint programs that forced the banks to make those loans? C’mon...the auto industry can’t be any worse than the millions of hands-out Americans who thought getting into a house for nothing down meant they wouldn’t have to make their payments either.
I know it doesn’t fix the problem to continue to do the same stupid thing again, but being a bad credit risk is not a good enough excuse for the banks to avoid making loans, especially if we know the gubmint backs them up. I’m just saying I don’t want them to dip into anymore money, when there’s already money out there in the banks, and we can force them to make the loans just like we did when they made the home loans.
He's done the right thing on the war, even if every decision hasn't been ideal in hindsight.
He who? And for what?
Excuse me but BUSH IS the globalist element.
13 billion giveaway is a bad idea.. especially since it undercuts all of the hard work the Republicans did in the Senate killing it..
but 13 Billion is not the big mistake.. its the Trillions... in bailout for the financial institutions.. that may really kill the u.s. economy in the long run..
on the bright side.. at least no auto czar..
and Bush has done some great things as president..
He Bush. For anything. He has screwed us royally.
Ego is the real problem in MOST disputes, isn’t it?
I know it gets ME in trouble periodically...
Yeah, I’m with you! What do we do? Will I have to miss work or all the other many obligations I have to get it done?
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