The leaders of the Detroit Big Three automakers head back to Congress today, trying to sell the House of Representatives on the idea that they should get a $25 billion loan to help keep them afloat. CEOs Wagoner, Nardelli and Mulally and the president of the UAW went before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday to try and convince them to bail the automakers out.
Yesterday, Ford CEO Alan Mulally said he wanted Ford to be restructured and that an “industry bridge loan” would help the company do just that.
Chrysler LLC CEO Bob Nardelli blamed his company’s troubles on the economy and the credit crisis. He asked the Senate Committee for a “working capital bridge” to help them out of a “liquidity crisis”.
GM CEO Rick Wagoner said that without the loan, all three automakers could go under and millions of Americans could lose their jobs. “This is all about a lot more than just Detroit,” Wagoner said. “It’s about saving the U.S. economy from a catastrophic collapse.”
Sen. Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee, disagreed with the Detroit automaker executives.
“I don’t think they have immediate plans to change their model, which is a model of failure,” Shelby said. “I think a lot of it will be life support. I believe their best option would be some type of Chapter 11 bankruptcy … These leaders have been failures and they need to go.”
A Senate vote on a possible bridge loan for the automotive industry could come as early as Thursday,
reports MSNBC.
Photo by Gerald Herbert / Associated Press via the Detroit News.
