Word: detroiters
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That was why, when the CEOs of the Detroit Three auto companies showed up on Capitol Hill in mid-November to beg for $25 billion in emergency loans, the committees they went to were Senate Banking and House Financial Services--which have jurisdiction over the financial-bailout...
...Considering the mixed messages Capitol Hill sent on Thursday, that seemed the only appropriate approach. First, news spread midday that a group of bipartisan lawmakers had reached an agreement to provide Detroit with an infusion of $25 billion, with a victory press conference to be held at 2:30 p.m. Then, abruptly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid cut the negotiators off at the pass by holding a hastily called press conference of their own in the same Senate room at 2:00 p.m. At that point, the Democratic leaders announced that they would not bring...
...lawmakers, showing signs of bailout fatigue after the $700 billion financial-crisis package passed in September, have been left largely unimpressed by Detroit's cries for help. All week long, Senators and Representatives from both parties have lamented the decades of bad management that have put the auto industry in its current predicament: investing in SUVs when the rest of the world, eyeing the future oil crunch, was betting on smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; spending millions lobbying Congress to avoid regulation that would force tougher environmental standards; and giving its union unsustainably generous deals on salary and benefits that...
...United Auto Workers head Ron Gettelfinger - who also appeared on Capitol Hill on Wednesday but has so far escaped much of Congress's wrath despite his union's crippling labor deals - used a press conference on Thursday to bash what he said was the hypocrisy of certain Detroit opponents in Congress. Many of the same Senators and Representatives who vehemently object to giving any aid to carmakers, he claimed, come from states that have shelled out big bucks as incentive to lure foreign automakers to set up plants. "It just seems odd to us that we can offer incentives...
...guarantee domestic carmakers will survive. Consumption, the chief engine of economic growth in the U.S., could shrink roughly 1% in 2009 in what could be the worst recession since the 1930s, according to Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan's survey of consumer sentiment. As if Detroit isn't hurting enough, its biggest longtime booster in Washington, Michigan Representative John Dingell, lost his powerful perch as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a caucus vote on Thursday. For 28 years, Dingell had helped craft every piece of environmental legislation, but he will now have...