WDET News
- Senator Levin Predicts President Bush Will Aid Auto Industry
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Dec 15, 2008Automotive & BusinessMichigan’s senior U-S Senator says he is cautiously optimistic that the Bush Administration will provide federal loan for Detroit’s struggling automakers.
WDET’s Quinn Klinefelter has more…
Michigan Democrat Carl Levin heads the Senate Armed Services Committee…and has often been at odds with the Bush White House over foreign policy concerns since the U-S invaded Iraq.
But after some in the Senate Republican leadership killed a potential federal bailout for U-S automakers…Levin says Detroit’s Big Three must now rely on President Bush to keep the car companies afloat. “The President made a deal with the House of Representatives. And that deal was entered into personally between the President and the Speaker – Pelosi. It passed the House of Representatives. And once the President makes a deal he is not likely to walk away from it.”
White House and Treasury Department officials say they are still debating just what federal funds should be used to help the Big Three automakers.
Some in Congress…like Levin…want the money to come from the 700 billion dollar financial rescue plan already approved by the government.
But the White House until recently has strongly opposed providing any of that so-called TARP money for anything other than financial institutions.