Political Forums - The auto bailout.

Gentleman George Voinovich's comments on the bailout.

This is the very same scandal-free Senator that the WSJ ravaged as not being a Republican. Interestingly he's also fromn the same Cleveland district as Kucinich.

".....Turn back the clock to 2008. As co-chairman of the auto caucus in the U.S. Senate, I advocated for government assistance to save this economically-critical industry from bankruptcy.

Together with my auto caucus co-chairman, Michigan's Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, I was front-and-center during the debate on the auto bailout and joined with other auto-state colleagues to help GM and Chrysler avoid liquidation and benefit from a structured managed bankruptcy.

.......

According to experts, regular bankruptcy was not an option because of the collapse of the credit markets and because traditional debtor-in-possession financing wasn't available. The only option would have been liquidation.

Working with my colleagues, we crafted legislation that would have provided up to $25 billion of assistance already appropriated through Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. This bill sought to protect taxpayers by including prohibitions on executive compensation, golden parachutes, dividend payments and equity stakes to share in future profits.

Unfortunately, the legislation died under objections from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, both Democrats, which caused panic in financial markets. This negative reaction caused congressional Democratic leaders to abandon their objections to Section 136 and join the Bush administration in developing a new plan.

I'll never forget the Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008, Republican policy lunch when I warned my colleagues that if they voted against the compromise, the president would have to consider using the bank bailout fund for loans to automakers. It was my opinion that the president was not going to leave office being known as George "Herbert Hoover" Bush. Vice President Dick Cheney, who attended the lunches but rarely spoke, confirmed what I had told my colleagues and urged them to support the compromise.

On Dec. 10, the House approved a compromise auto bailout, but it died in the Senate at the hands of senators from right-to-work states. It was an unfortunate outcome to important bipartisan efforts designed to help a lynchpin of America's manufacturing might.

The irony is that if the Senate had approved the compromise plan, President Bush would not have had to use bank rescue funds -- known as "TARP" -- and lawmakers, not President Barack Obama, would have called the shots on the loan conditions for automakers.

In the wake of the collapse of congressional efforts, President Bush was under enormous pressure from bailout opponents to not use TARP funds to help automakers. He had to weigh the proper role of government in private enterprise versus its role in safeguarding the broader health and stability of the economy. I urged him to come down on the side of the latter.

Ultimately, the president agreed, concluding that these were not ordinary times and that if he allowed the free market to take its course, "it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy and liquidation for the automakers."

He went on to say that "allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action," and that he recognized that if help was not extended, "it would leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office."

The president's final words on the auto crisis were prophetic: "By giving the auto companies a chance to restructure, we will shield the American people from a harsh economic blow at a vulnerable time. And we will give American workers an opportunity to show the world once again they can meet challenges with ingenuity and determination, and bounce back from tough times, and emerge stronger than before."

........"

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/ind...es_credit.html

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Pete