Let’s do a timeline shall we? President Barack Obama authorizes the auto bailout in 2008. They agreed originally to lend $17.4 billion to General Motors and Chrysler at the end of 2008. By June 2009 it was $55 billion, and by 2009’s end it was $80 billion that the Treasury Department has shelled out.
Now looking at Michigan’s unemployment figures. In March of 2008 the unemployment rate was 7.1%. In December of 2008 it was 10.6%. In March of 2009 it was 12.6%, and at its Zenith it was 14.2% in August of 2009. It didn’t drop to below 10% until October of 2011. At that point you also had a change of Governor in 2010. Republican Rick Synder was elected. Also Republicans took control of both the Michigan House and Senate.
I’m sure that had something to do with some improvement as Governor Granholm was an unmitigated disaster. Think about what she is basically said if we could paraphrase her. “Michigan was in trouble and we needed the Calvary, Obama came in to help correct my screw-up because I couldn’t fix our fiscal mess.
Kevin Hassett on the American Enterprise Institute website points out that the bailout in the long run will keep the American auto industry weak. He said, “If the government had allowed the automakers to reorganize in bankruptcy courts, unions would have taken a bigger haircut, the automakers would be stronger today, and the government would have saved money.”
Very true. Granholm doesn’t acknowledge union compensation, benefits and pensions in comparison with the smaller overhead of Detroit’s competitors had a huge role to play in the crisis. Auto manufacturers needed to make cuts, but they couldn’t.
Now look at the screen shot below, notice anything off?
If you said the lady holding the Ford sign you’d be correct. Ford never took bailout money and low and behold they’re outperforming their competition. That’s something else you didn’t hear last night.
Here is a video of excerpts of Granholm’s speech that ABC News put together: