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Detroit Free Press - "Romney returns topic to auto industry bailout, his weak spot"
Mitt Romney continues to lie and insist that he actually supported President Obama's auto bailout, so it is nice that a newspaper occassionally calls him on this lie.
http://www.freep.com/article/20121027/COL06/310270145/Tom-Walsh-Romney-returns-topic-to-auto-industry-bailout-his-weak-spot-in-crucial-swing-state-Ohio?odyssey=nav%7Chead
As has been widely reported and repeated over the past several years, Romney contended that Chrysler and General Motors should have gone through managed bankruptcies -- which is exactly what ultimately happened in 2009 -- but that they should not have been financed with taxpayer dollars. Private money could have been used, he said.
Most economic experts agree that no private capital on that scale was available during the credit-frozen days of the 2008 economic crisis. Romney said it could have been, if the federal government had guaranteed the loans.
* * *
Now, in Romney's Thursday speech, has come the xenophobic crack about Jeep being "now owned by the Italians" -- in other words, not only did Obama use your taxes to keep Chrysler afloat, but he also turned the company over to those foreigners from Fiat.
The danger for Romney is that people who work for Jeep in Toledo, where Chrysler announced a $1.7-billion investment and 1,100 new jobs a year ago, are thankful as can be that Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is leading Chrysler through a robust and surprising revival.
They wouldn't care whether Marchionne came from the planet Jupiter. And there are tens of thousands more Ohioans who work in glass plants or auto parts plants or GM factories, who are pleased at how the Chrysler and GM rescues turned out.
That's why Romney's repeated rhetorical return to the auto industry, such tortuous turf for him, is so puzzling.
Most economic experts agree that no private capital on that scale was available during the credit-frozen days of the 2008 economic crisis. Romney said it could have been, if the federal government had guaranteed the loans.
* * *
Now, in Romney's Thursday speech, has come the xenophobic crack about Jeep being "now owned by the Italians" -- in other words, not only did Obama use your taxes to keep Chrysler afloat, but he also turned the company over to those foreigners from Fiat.
The danger for Romney is that people who work for Jeep in Toledo, where Chrysler announced a $1.7-billion investment and 1,100 new jobs a year ago, are thankful as can be that Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is leading Chrysler through a robust and surprising revival.
They wouldn't care whether Marchionne came from the planet Jupiter. And there are tens of thousands more Ohioans who work in glass plants or auto parts plants or GM factories, who are pleased at how the Chrysler and GM rescues turned out.
That's why Romney's repeated rhetorical return to the auto industry, such tortuous turf for him, is so puzzling.
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