The True Cost Of The Auto Bailout

By Matt Patterson and Crissy Brown

Once upon a time, there was a company called General Motors. It made cars. But the company failed to adjust to changing market conditions, and that, combined with the high cost of its unionized workforce, drove it to insolvency. But before the doors were shuttered forever, a great and benevolent benefactor swooped in.

That benefactor was you — the American taxpayer..

It was you who stepped in back in 2008 and flooded GM with billions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a desperate attempt to shore up a variety of decrepit institutions whose imminent collapse threatened the entire U.S. economy (or so we were told). The initial bailout was followed in summer 2009 with another round of auto stimulus; all told, the taxpayer tab for General Motors bailout was a cool $50.7 billion.

What did we get for that money? Some jobs were saved. But President Barack Obama loves to embellish what the bailout actually achieved. He claimed at an April campaign event, for example, the bailout “saved probably a million jobs” and that “GM is now the No. 1 automaker again in the world.”  To Read More……..