House OKs $14B auto-bailout package
WASHINGTON
The House approved the redeem plan by 237 to 170, mostly by coterie lines. A number of Republican lawmakers from states heavily dependent on the auto industry joined the Democrats in supporting the measure. The Washington state delegation split along party lines, with Democrats voting for the measure and Republicans against it.
The White House so far has failed to generate maintain among Senate Republicans, who be favored with the competency to kill the poster.
General Motors and Chrysler desire said they cannot survive plenteous longer lacking the founded on give support to, while Ford, which is in better create than its competitors, has said it will not seek the emergency loans.
As an amendment to the auto-rescue sketch, the House approved a standard that would require banks receiving assistance from the Treasury’s $700 billion economic-stabilization program to detail new lending activity each divide in four equal parts.
The White House chief of staff, Josh Bolten, attended a lunch at the Capitol with Republican senators in each attempt to persuade them to back the auto-rescue plan further met stiff resistance. Some Republican senators before-mentioned the automakers should be allowed to cease. Others said the proposed control of the rescue by a so-called car czar was too weak.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and one of the few outspoken Republican supporters of a taxpayer-backed rescue, emerged from the lunch sounding deeply pessimistic. Voinovich said Senate Republicans had refused to participate in negotiations by the White House because of general inconsistency to an auto bailout.
“The lead did not want to participate because they felt whatever came out of the negotiations, they probably wouldn’t support,” Voinovich said. He said he intended to vote for the plan.
The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, was noncommittal. The Republicans had a “spirited” discussion hither and thither the auto-rescue plan, he said, but it was too soon to take a stand because they had just received a final draft of the bill.
“Everybody’s still kind of poring from one side it, trying to figure out exactly what it does,” McConnell said.
Even some auto-state lawmakers were unhappy with the bailout plan the White House helped to design. “While I am fighting to save Missouri auto jobs,” reported Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., “Congress is just putting off the inevitable unless we force the companies to reform fundamentally, which this latest sketch fails to bring about and is why I am sacrifice changes to make it work.”
A affix a number to of other Senate Republicans aforesaid they had every intention of scuttling a taxpayer-financed rescue for GM and Chrysler.
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