Romney Claims Obama Wasted $20 Billion On Bailout - Should Have Funded Education And Police

This idiot.
First he criticizes the President for the auto bailout telling him to "Let them go bankrupt"
When he sees that it didn't fail, he somehow takes credit for it working out. "I take some credit for that"
Now he is saying that the money should have been used for something else.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

What a bunch of OBAMA bums on this board. I bet all of you can't wait for him to win again, so people like myself continue to pay more taxes in order to support all you moochers and your entitlements, bad decisions like this GM bailout debacle and supporting these unions that are sucking the life out of this country. Don't worry, I am still proud of serving 20+ years for this country so you guys can "bitch and whine" beacuse of our freedom of speech. What has any of you done for this country lately? BTW Educate yourselves and learn what Chapter 7 & 11 are all about (just look at NorthstarSRX's post). Then we wouldn't be taking such losses on the VOLTs.

Everything that Romney says is 100% true. Right 009?

Well, no, but everything that 009 says is definitely, definitely true.

All I have to say is that it is a lot easier to complain about the aftermath than make the plan.

I guess so. Romney is never wrong (cough)

Wasn't the framework for this already set by GWB with the Banking/investment company bailouts? They should have also been allowed to fail, but politics intervened in favor of monied interests, not treating all classes alike. I also believe it was Bush who wrote that his actions saved GM?

NorthstarSRX is absolutely right. A bankruptcy would've allowed GM to restructure their business to create a more sustainable model. Instead, after Bush first threw GM a lifeline, Obama came in and funneled billions in taxpayer dollars to the UAW as payment for their political support. Those of you believing the Obama propaganda need to look beyond the simplistic rhetoric and study the issues more thoroughly. Here's an informative article explaining the actual facts of the bailout you won't hear from Obama or his sycophants:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316379/democrats-gm-fiction-editors

+1 for at least acknowledging that there is more to this discussion than the would/wouldn't-have-failed argument, but you're still making a very facile argument. I wouldn't rule out political opportunism as a factor in circumventing a rule-of-law bankruptcy proceeding, but to suggest it was the only factor and then believe there's a politician who would have resisted the opportunity is naive--classic partisan thinking.

You're painting a fantasy picture of how successfully, orderly, timely, and harmlessly chapter 11s are planned and executed and of how well it would have gone for GM under the unusual circumstances of a deep recession. You realize not all Chapter 11 bankruptcies end well?

And Obama "sending a message" that the rules of the game can change? You've got to be kidding me--who doesn't know this? GM is systemically important. They, and all the too-big-to-fail companies, have gotten to be as big as they are ONLY through government assistance (including rule-changing on their behalf). If any presidential candidate, like Romney, wants to pretend that businesses should be allowed to fail then he should go on record as saying that from that point forward, he will also not help them grow beyond their ability to compete in the global market (EVEN if companies from other nations are being subsidized and protected from global competition). Good luck.

"Those of you believing the Obama propaganda need to look beyond the simplistic rhetoric and study the issues more thoroughly."

MBCLS07, this is good advice for anyone, but with respect to any politician, candidate, or issue. It is understandable that the fictionalization of real events (Obama's handling of GM) sometimes overshadows the fictionalization of proposed events (what Romney claims he would have done), but it's important to remember that they are both fiction (the latter, usually being the purer form).

Remember that it was the Bush administration that initially offered financial help to GM, but on the condition that it completely rewrite its business plan. But Obama effectively nationalized the company, placing it under federal oversight, and seeing to it that normal bankruptcy processes were violated, specifically to benefit the financial interests of the UAW. He forced GM’s creditors and bondholders (even *secured* creditors) to take huge losses instead of receiving the benefit of the secured assets, relieving GM of tens of billions of dollars in obligations, in order to put the UAW at the front of the line, so to speak. Mitt Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have ensured that all financial obligations, including UAW contracts, would have been renegotiated equally, placing the company on a sustainable financial path, rather than permanent life support. Now the taxpayers are on the hook for 10's of billions of dollars that will never be repaid, and forced to eat almost $50k for every Volt sold. Somehow this is good? And Chapter 11, which every other business in a similar position must enter, is bad?

All I know is that most of those with all the opinions about the President and what he should have done or didn't do would have had no better plan or the 'silver bullet' to fix the economic implosion that was our economy. It's so easy to say what you would have done or to criticize, but the real deal is that even if Romney had been elected and served the term of our current President, things would not be better...actually probably worse, because he would have allowed the U.S. auto industry to fail and THAT would have been a global catastrophe. It would have travelled all the way down the food chain from GM, Ford, and Chrysler, to all the small business and hardworking citizens that count on those super large companies to survive.

Now, W.C., I have seen the statement that the economy is a house of cards with GM at the bottom. This is a common talking point, but it doesn't quite fit.

The caveat though is that there isn't much demand destruction if GM does under. Sure the demand generated by their employees which would no longer have a job would be destroyed. But the remainder, and vast majority, of the demand simply gets absorbed by GM's competitors. Suppliers that supply parts to multiple companies may face some issues in product type alloation, but the likelihood is that only suppliers exclusive to GM would tank.

Sure you can make the argument that the "free demand" generated by GM going under would perhaps be reallocated by foreign manufacturers, but that is another matter.

Stop letting Korean cars be dumped into our country, problem solved. Either than or force them to take in American cars. Kind of hard to sell our cars when the gov't, even with FT, prevents our cars from being sold there. I'm sure the Koreans would go crazy over American cars, they love everything else about the West.

Hyundai/KIA have 2 factories in some hick states. How many US plants shutdown because they can't compete against cars being sold at below cost (I'll accept GM cars being crappy doesn't help).

How do you like that "Hopey-Changey" thing now America? Obamacare has just jack all for me, but atleast I get to know the gov't is still wasting my tax money.

Its unfortunate most Americans don't realize Korea is raping us. I guess cheap imitation cars, smartphones and tvs dulls the pain...and the memory.
China gets sloppy seconds and we'll take it happily as long as Walmart shelves are full.

According to Steven Ratner, Obama's car czare, the Obama administration in 2009 looked for lending institutions that would loan money to both GM and Chrysler. They determined after speaking to over 25 possible lenders that not one would lend either company any money. This would have caused Chapter 7 bankruptcy, not chapter 11. Neither company had any cash to keep going. Over a few yrs assets of both these companies would have eventually been sold off but only to auto companies that could have afforded to buy them. Incidently when Romney talks about GM waiting too long to go into bankruptcy, Ratner states that is ridiculous. GM, under Rick Wagoner, never prepared for bankruptcy.If both GM and Chrysler were allowed to simply liquidate All the auto supply companies that supply GM, Chrysler,Ford and all the foreign implants like Toyota,Honda, Hyundai etc.would have gone under as well.Ford,even restructuring it's debt would have probably defualted on paying it's loans and possibly gone under. The foreign implants might have also folded and gone home. That would have decimated the auto industry and millions of jobs would have been lost.This would have had a rippeling affect throughout the already weak economy at that time.

People's memory is very selective, assuming they even understood what was happening in 2008 and 2009. Was the auto bailout executed perfectly? Retrospectively, probably not. Even at the time it was done extremely begrudgingly, however the administration had no choice.