Salon.com > Auto Bailout

Mitt rewrites auto bailout history

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:32:00 +0000

One of the most deceptive jujitsu moves in modern campaign is known as swiftboating: trying to turn one of your opponent’s strengths into a weakness. Given the centrality of Ohio to electoral success less than a week from today (!), it should be no surprise that the Romney team is going after the success of the President’s auto rescue.

Full disclosure: as a member of the President’s economics team I strongly advocated for the rescue, as per both my principal (the Vice-President) and the view held by myself and others that the employment costs would be particularly steep in communities that comprised the relevant supply chains. When you think about auto jobs, don’t just think about the factory at the end of the line where they assemble the cars and trucks. Think about all the small and medium size manufacturers that make those parts.

That’s where many of the new jobs in Ohio are coming from and it’s an important piece of evidence for the bailout’s success. Which makes it catnip for the Romney swiftboaters.

Romney drives Jeep off cliff

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:32:00 +0000

We've come to expect that the last week of a presidential campaign is a time for ratcheting up all the nastiness and lies and sleaze to maximum insanity. There's a lot at stake, after all. But there's something special about what Mitt Romney is up to right now, as he makes a last gasp grab for Ohio's voters.

Undissuaded by the facts, media derision, or the vociferous denials of Chrysler's CEO, the Romney campaign is continuing to run new advertisements in Ohio claiming that Obama is responsible for a supposed Chrysler plan to outsource Jeep production to China at the cost of U.S. jobs. Talk about chutzpah: Romney's campaign is attempting to turn its greatest Rust Belt weakness -- "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" -- into an electoral advantage.

Mitt “doesn’t get” the auto bailout

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000

In 2009, Virg Bernero earned the nickname “America’s Angriest Mayor” after a series of quarrelsome debates about the auto bailout with free-market absolutists on Fox News.

The mayor of Lansing, Mich., where General Motors opened two new auto plants during the 2000s, Bernero startled Lego-haired Fox anchorman Gregg Jarrett with a rant questioning why the United Auto Workers -- including Bernero’s father, an octogenarian GM retiree -- were asked to sacrifice wages and benefits while Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers received billions in TARP money.

“I gotta say, in all honesty, I was a little offended by your question, ‘Have the unions given up enough? Has the working man given up enough?’” Bernero shouted, before Jarrett even asked him a question. “My question is, ‘Has Wall Street given up enough, for the billions they have taken?’ I gotta tell ya, I am sick and tired of the double standard: one standard for Washington and Wall Street, another standard for the working people in this country. It always comes down to, in order to be more competitive, we gotta take it out of the hide of the working person.”

The truth about the auto bailout

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:30:00 +0000

One of the most contentious moments from last night’s foreign policy debate had nothing to do with a foreign country; it concerned the auto industry bailout (though Detroit does like to pretend it's another country). While, as we noted last night, both Obama and Romney have skewed the facts a bit to fit their narrative, we thought it was worth taking a closer look at Romney’s position on the rescue.

First the common ground: Both Obama and Romney agree that the car companies needed to make deep cuts, shed costs, write down debts and fundamentally restructure themselves in the way that can be achieved only through bankruptcy. When Mitt Romney wrote his infamous November 2008 New York Times Op-Ed “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” this is what he meant -- he did not mean let the companies go belly up, as Obama falsely suggested last night. And indeed, that’s what happened. Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 in April 2009, and GM followed in June.

How Mitt Romney made a fortune off the auto bailout

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Faced with the hard facts that “bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive,” as Vice President Biden always says, Mitt Romney has resorted to claiming that Obama followed his lead on the auto industry bailout. “I know [Obama] keeps saying, you wanted to take Detroit bankrupt," he said during this week's debate at Hofstra University. "Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt.” Romney's right, in a way -- both his plan and Obama’s plan envisioned the auto companies going through a period of bankruptcy restructuring. But there’s a key difference: Obama's approach was to use government dollars to prop up the auto companies until they could stand on their own again -- something that Romney, like other Republicans in the Tea Party's anti-spending thrall, adamantly opposed as dangerous government intervention in private industry.

But it turns out that Romney should know firsthand that this kind of intervention can be successful, as a new report shows that he and his wife made at least $15.3 million courtesy of Obama's auto bailout. According to a Greg Palast, who followed the paper trail for the Nation, Romney and his wife made the money via an investment in a hedge fund that saw astronomical returns on its investments in an auto parts maker that would have gone under absent the president's rescue operation.

Buy a new car, vote for Obama

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:25:00 +0000

With just hours to go before the first presidential debate, conservative pundits are clamoring for Mitt Romney to attack President Obama on the economy. Fox News' Wednesday morning offering from John Lott is typical:

Are you better off today than four years ago? Tonight's presidential debate, with its focus on domestic policy, is Mitt Romney’s chance to put President Obama on the defensive, to make him answer for his abysmal economy policies.

The problem for Republicans, however, is the increasing amount of evidence indicating that Americans do not think the economy is abysmal. Tuesday delivered the most unimpeachable proof so far of blithe confidence: In September Americans bought new cars at a rate not witnessed since February 2008. Chrysler recorded its best September sales since 2007. Honda and Toyota completed their comeback from the earthquake-related disruptions of 2011. Americans are voting with their wallets.

Quote of the day: “Balls”

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 20:56:00 +0000

A Washington Post poll shows that 64 percent of registered voters in Ohio think the federal auto bailout was "mostly good" for the economy, while 29 percent said it was "mostly bad."

According to CNN, one Republican strategist in Ohio summed up what these numbers mean for the Romney campaign: "A kick in the balls."