News Flash: McCotter's Proposed Compromise Bill Makes Sense
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Just a quick note to follow up on my last post. The House Financial Services Committee has concluded its hearings with GM's Rick Wagoner, Ford's Alan Mulally and Chrysler's Bob Nardelli. Acting U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro is speaking now. The second part of the hearings includes a group of economists, including Jeffrey Sachs, Felix Rohatyn and Edward Altman. Altman favors a GM bankruptcy and $40-50 billion in "debtor to possession" federal loans.
At the end of the first session, Representative Thaddeus McCotter, Michigan Republican serving Livonia, outlined the reasons for his compromise bill.
Half of the loans, presumably $17 billion for the Detroit Three, should come from the financial industry TARP, because if the D3 get no loans, there will be thousands more home foreclosures.
The other $17 billion, under McCotter's proposal, would come from the Energy Bill's $25 billion for advanced fuel-efficient technologies. McCotter says that without the loans, a lot of research & development the D3 already has funded would be lost to foreign competitors.
Almost sounds too logical for Capitol Hill.
