Are you against the bailout for the Auto makers?

I think the general thought in Washington right now is that no one wants to be the one to "do the deed" and be who gets blamed regarding the decision of whether to bail them out or let them die. The Senate and the House wants GWB to take over and make the determination so he gets the blame, and the White House wants the Senate to do it. There is also a great concern that even if they vote to give them the money, it is only a temporary fix and that the automakers will be back in six months wanting more money.

Realistically, we do need to rescue the auto industry. Way too many problems will increase if they go under. However, I think the first condition should be that the CEOs of all three be fired and they start restructure procedings from the top down.

There are so many other industries that depend on those big auto makers. I don't believe that just bailing them out would be the thing to do. They need to have some heavy restrictions put in place and get the unions out of the business. The unions have helped to bankrupt those companies. There was a time when they were useful but that time is past when the employees make $75.00 an hour. And the CEO make so much and have the perks that they have. That needs to be adressed befor a bail is considered.

From what the news said this morning the bill didnt go thru no bail out for them

Hi,estherlou, I was very glad to sign the letter.There is no way they should get any money.They flew in their private jets to Washington to ask for the money.Let them sell their jets,is the way I feel.Let them tighten their belts the way common folks have to.God bless you.

Totally against the bail out. I have suffered a great number of financial losses in the last eight years, both personal and business losses. The govenment isn't going to bail me out for legitimate reasons let alone for poor business planning.

According to various news sources, I understand that congress or somebody or some somebodies want the big three to first, come up with some kind of contingency or something before "awarding" the bailout. Back around 20 years ago, Chrystler got bailed out by the Reagan administration, & then later got sold to Mercedes (Not an American company). That was something I found bothersome. At that same time, Ford Motors also acquired another overseas car manuyfacturer (Volvo?). I understand that Chrystler is back in American hands, but not sure about Mercedes. General Motors Corp seems to have been in some kind of financial situation for a long time. However, from what I heard, from their laying off all those employees, those unemployed people gave them a bit of competition by starting Saturn. I have no idea how that company is doing, or if they're still in business. At the same time, it seemed that Ford WAS an innovator, such as the continental lights (all the way across instead of just on the sides), the continental spare tire (that 'hump for a spare tire on the back of their Lincoln continentals), & other things. I don't recall if they were the first ones to replace carberateurs with engine with fuel injectors. However, it seems that if Ford is having financial difficulties, the situation is indeed horrid. There is also another car company on the rise called Tesla Motors (Tesla - named after a physicist/engineer) that makes me want to say "Move over you big three." To answer the question, the Federal government did the right thing in demanding that the car companies come up with suitable business plans before considering a bailout.

no I am not against it, so many jobs will be lost if they go bankrupts, and that means people will lose their homes and everything else.

I am against the bailout. They could have easily improved the autos, but the Unions were more interested in giving themselves better wages. My husband worked for the CN, one of the main railways in Canada, and he had his journeyman's papers, was a heavy duty mechanic, and he got a very good wage as well as the usual health and medical benefits, but the wages that the big three Auto Maker workers got was almost twice as much as he made and the CN was one of the top payers of ordinary workers in Canada. Let them file Chapter 11 and work on improving their autos by making them safer, use less gas, and cost less.

I know automotive industry employs a lot of people, both there and here in canada but the thing is even if they bail out these companies who would buy new cars in times like this? even worse I heard canadian ministers are going to US to talk about giving money to help out auto industries in the US as well as canadian auto industry I have worked in auto industry before and I don't think this bail out will help anything aside the management's pocket and face big companies that employ a lot of people do not beg for bail out for the sake of employment, they do this to save themselves from liquidation while it's true liquidation would cause unemployment rate to rise, helping them survive in this market condition is not a smart idea either the money they would use for bail out can be used to create long term jobs, regardless part time or full time, something like infrastructure construction because this kind of jobs are mostly long term including future maintenance plus it is useful for public anyway, either that or agriculture so we can stop importing food from china or any country to save our budget

Ester I disagree with you. I am worried about all the workers who will be laid off we the government does not help the auto workers. I know they where in the wrong and they did not manage their money correctly and why should we pay for their mistakes. If you look at another way. We will be paying for all those auto workers anyway if they lose their jobs, we will have to pay for their unemployment, their medical and if they foreclose on their home who will pay for their housing. That is why I will not sign you petition.

This has been quite a hot topic in the news lately. I have some mixed feelings on this issue. I am a strong believer in the free market economy and in general I believe that the strongest companies with great products and strong management will and should continue to do business and those without great products and strong management should not. That being said, this is a difficult situation. I don't believe that our tax payer money should be used to bailout anyone. If one company gets bailed out why is another allowed to fail (i.e. AIG vs. Lehman)? Ultimately, we as taxpayers are going to be paying for all of this bailout money. On the other hand, in this case, there are a number of factors which I believe is affecting this decision. What will happen if we don't bailout the big auto makers? There will be millions of jobs lost and this will have a very significant effect on our economy. The government (and us taxpayers) will not only have to pay more for unemployment benefits and have lost tax revenue but also have to pay retirement benefits via the PBGC. The retirement fund of GM by itself is huge and the impact to the goverment (and us taxpayers) would be huge. In fact, it may be much bigger than $15B. So while I strongly disagree with using taxpayer money to bailout a company, in this case, it may be the lesser of two evils just from a taxpayer standpoint. Also, if this is structured correctly, we as taxpayers will get equity in the auto makers. If they happen to be able to make it through this crisis, we can sell the equity back at a higher price and actually make money on this deal. Of course that may be too optimistic but let's hope it works out. Otherwise, we'll end up losing even more money and you can be certain that Congress and the president will need to raise taxes to cover all of this bailout money.

I think that it's a bad idea to just bail them out. This is not the first time that a car manufacturer has needed to be bailed out and has gotten the bailout from the government. This also happened sometimes in the 80's, I believe. I think if we keep doing this, we're going to send the message that people can run their companies irresponsibly without any consequences when the company begins to fail. I think if we bail them out just because they employ hundreds of thousands of people, they will get the message that they can do no wrong because of that powerful number of employees. "You better bail us out or else hundreds of thousands of people will be out of a job and it will hurt the economy." I think that these manufacturers need to be held accountable for bad business decsions. Honestly, I hate GM and Ford cars. They are not very mechanically reliable in comparison with other cars. They also get pretty low MPG in comparison with other cars. I think that if these manufacturers would respond better to consumer needs, then more consumers would be compelled to buy their cars and they wouldn't be in this position.

I'm definitely going for it. Thanks for posting the link! This is insanity. What about all the little businesses that big businesses ate for breakfast? No one wanted to help bail THEM out! All the 'Mom and Pop' type stores that have gone by the wayside were never offered government help! There's no way I'd want a penny of my taxes going to help these huge corporations! Let 'em go under and start again, being more sensible and making better business decisions this time. I'm off to send that letter now. Thanks again for sharing it! I'm going to pass it around to everyone I know as well!

there are so many people that are against the buyout and i guess i am one of them. the big bosses (that flew to the meetings yesterday in washington in their private jets, i might add) seem to be totally out of touch with reality and the common man. i am in canada and the situation is similar here and our government is thinking about bailing them out as well. i think if we do, there has to be some concessions (the average worker makes $30- an hour! which is more than DOUBLE what i make! - everyone would have to take some sort of paycut) and the big bosses would have to chip in extra for sure. the only thing about the bailout if we dont do it, it wont hurt the big boys, just the common tax payer in the long run because THEY will be the ones that will be losing their jobs!!!