Sen. Levin: Big three auto CEO's should resign Stephen C. Webster

Published: Sunday November 16, 2008





Print This Email This Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), during a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, assailed the CEO's of Detroit's big three auto makers and said they should resign if it meant the government would then provide rescue loans to the failing companies.



Asked by MSNBC's Tom Brokaw if he had relayed this opinion to General Motors Corporate Chairman Rick Wagoner, Sen. Levin remarked, "Id be happy to tell Rick Wagoner that he ought to consider resigning if that is the difference between getting this kind of support and not."



General Motors specifically dissolved over $14 billion in the third quarter. It is requesting aid from Congress because the company expects to run out of money and be unable to continue operations by early 2009.



Sen. Levin's support for the loans comes on the heels of Obama arguing for a government stake in the auto industry, but only if major changes are undertaken to modernize, with an emphasis on sustainable technology.



The President-elect characterized it as, "a bridge loan to somewhere, as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere."



"We've got at least three million jobs dependent upon this industry surviving," said Sen. Levin on Meet the Press. "We've got -- this is a Main Street problem. We've got 10,000 or more dealers. They, they cover the country in every town of this country. The auto industry touches millions and millions of lives. One out of 10 jobs in this country are auto related. Twenty percent of our retail sales are auto related or automobiles. So this is a national problem."



GM's Wagoner has so far refused to comment, but said in a statement, "the global economic crisis that has put this industry in its current precarious position far exceeds any one individual."



"This is an issue of the whole auto industry, if that becomes under severe pressure, the impact on the whole U.S. economy will be devastating," said Wagoner to an NBC affiliate early Sunday.



Wagoner added that the government should not view the loans as federalizing a business, and blamed the automaker's impending bankruptcy on stiff credit markets.



"This is not just about an industry or three companies. This is about jobs -- 350,000 direct, probably as much as three to five million jobs in total reflecting that industry," Democratic US Senator Byron Dorgan argued Sunday on Fox television.



Nevertheless, Democrats and Republicans in Washington are preparing for a rare lame-duck congressional battle that will determine whether these companies will receive federal assistance.



"I don't speak for every Republican, but I suppose most of us will oppose it as a very bad idea," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ).



"The business model of the Big Three automakers, all experts have agreed, is a failing model. It's got to be changed. Just giving them 25 billion dollars doesn't change anything. It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."



With wire reports



