Automakers pitch Congress anew on rescue
WASHINGTON —
Humbled U.S. automakers pleaded with Congress Thursday for an expanded $34 billion rescue package, on the other hand heard fresh skepticism in a bumpy encore appearance.
“We’re here today because we made mistakes,” General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee in prepared testimony.
The three executives made the trip in new-model autos made by their respective companies, two weeks later a botched make trial because aid that included harsh criticism of corporate leaders who flew here on privy jets to beg by reason of money.
Ahead of testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, Wagoner apologized for asking for the help from taxpayers. Speaking with reporters, he said, “We intention the market conditions were more acceptable. They’re not.”
Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli aforesaid: “I can tell you in my 38 years in business, I’ve never attended a more serious session where more is reliant immediately after both the House and the Senate.”
Ford CEO Alan Mulally said in his prepared remarks that while his company isn’t in in the same manner with desperate straits as rivals GM and Chrysler, his company could quiet exercise a federal security of some $9 billion “because a ticklish backstop.”
“Our plan is working, but there is clearly more to be enough - something that is increasingly difficult in this tough economic climate,” he said.
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the panel, complained that the pricetag on the parcel had jumped since the trio the last time appeared merited two weeks ago
He pressed the automakers to explain for what cause, and to justify how such aid would not simply “prop up a failed business model for a few months … and how are you going to pay it end to the taxpayers?”
Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who supports helping the industry, said detailed plans submitted to Congress earlier this week by the three auto companies without ceasing by what means they would use low-cost federal loans to reorganize continually left a lot of questions unanswered.
Still, Dodd said, the economic news has become even more bleak since the auto executives appeared before Congress in recently November.
“In just pair weeks time, the clouds on the economic horizon have grown even darker and greater in number,” Dodd said, noting the authoritative designation this week by a panel of economists that the country had entered a recession that began a full year agone.
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