Taxpayers will lose even more on the auto bailout than previously thought, as the Treasury has just revised its estimate upward to $25 billion. This may still underestimate the losses to come—yet President Obama plans to tout the auto bailout as a key accomplishment of his Administration.
Politico recently obtained a draft of planning documents for the Democratic National Convention, finding a repeated focus on the auto bailout. The draft described the convention’s objectives:
Tell the story of the President’s accomplishments—the auto rescue, manufacturing, ending the war, health care, energy—as central to his fight for the middle class and America’s long-term economic strength.
As the losses continue to grow, will the President acknowledge that the only people truly “rescued” were unions? The President could have kept the automakers running without losing money—if he had restricted his Administration’s involvement to only providing bankruptcy financing. Instead, the Obama Administration involved itself heavily in the bankruptcy process, picking winners and losers instead of following normal bankruptcy law.
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