REPORT: Cheney says Bush left GM bankruptcy for the next guy
The writing's been on the wall for years: GM would have to declare bankruptcy if it had any hope of restructuring in order to survive in the long-term. And though the Obama administration's effective take-over of General Motors was hardly the first case of the government nationalizing a private company, President George W. Bush didn't want to be the one to do it.
This, according to former vice-president Dick Cheney, who reportedly admitted in a recent interview on Fox News that the Bush administration floated the $17.4 billion auto industry bailout package in order to give the outgoing administration enough time to exit and for the next administration to settle in before the house of cards in Detroit came tumbling down. According to Cheney, President Bush "decided that he did not want to be the one who pulled the plug just before he left office."
[Source: Motor Authority | Image: Mark Wilson/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Librapaj 8:31AM (6/09/2009)
I will comment just to say I reserve my comment.
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airswingman 9:17AM (6/09/2009)
because obama said : I can change. so why not give him a chance :)
Librapaj 9:22AM (6/09/2009)
Well actually I wanted to give my two cents, even though they aren't worth much but I didn't want to get bashed because more often than not people on here can't respect others opinions and have to resort to insulting others. But here I go. Doesn't the president of the United States have to honor the oath of office? What happened to doing the right thing for your country? Now I am not saying anybody is right with either decision that has been made, but I would think that the president should take care of a pressing issue such as the bankruptcy of one of our American Icons? I don't think it's right to just sweep it under the rug and say, the hell with it, let someone else deal with it.
notYou 9:04AM (6/10/2009)
And where was Obama during all this? As a Senator, the titular leader of the Democratic party that owned both houses in Congress, and the self-proclaimed "President of the Office Elect" (or some such nonsense) why didn't he, Pelosi, and Reid stand up and say "Bush is wrong and we're going to do something about it!"
Heaven forbid if Bush would have done anything else about it in November or December, we would now have the Bush-hating Obama crowd screaming that he overstepped his authority during the transition and that "Obama would have done it differently".
He wanted it, he never squawked about wanting anything different, and he got exactly what he asked for.
BoxerFanatic 11:19AM (6/09/2009)
The president doing what is right for the country?
How about if Bush had never said "We have to abandon the free market to save it."
and hadn't approved bail out money for ANYONE.
And had let the private enterprise chips fall where they may, and let private enterprise re-build itself more efficiently. That is freedom. The risk to succeed or fail on your own merits.
Screwing around like Bush AND Obama did, and are doing, is not the role of the federal government at all, let alone the POTUS, and CZARS.
Flamespoke 11:24AM (6/09/2009)
The question is would Bush have had time to do anything in the last 2 months he was in office. It makes no sense to get involved in a huge corporate bankruptcy when you have 60 days left in office. Whatever Bush would have started would have had to be finished by the next administration.
Furthermore, I doubt Bush would have a rogue "Car Czar" who knows nothing about the industry dictating terms with a hidden agenda favoring the unions over folks who actually invested money in the company i.e. retired teacher's union pensions...
Go Chrysler...I hope the share holders win in the Supreme Court!
Librapaj 11:26AM (6/09/2009)
@boxerfanatic
hence why i said, I am not saying who's right or who's wrong.
cdwrx 11:31AM (6/09/2009)
Bush has done an admirable job of staying out of Obama's way. In this case, he made the right decision and I think the current administration should appreciate that.
Clay Garland 12:06PM (6/09/2009)
Likely a comment being taken out of context. It wasn't obvcious while Bush was president that GM was going under. With Wagoner at the helm, things were looking up. Lutz cars were making their way to market, and things were actually looking up. Cheney was probably stating that Bush hoped he wouldn't have to grapple with letting GM collapse or nationalizing it. I seriously doubt that Cheney is suggesting that Bush intentionally left GM for his successor. Besides, the MO of a republican president would be to let a company fail and let bankruptcy force the emergence of a leaner and more profitable company. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason that Obama bailed out/took over GM is because he was beholden to the UAW.
SOhp101 12:22PM (6/09/2009)
Sorry but does it really take a genius to know this? It's clear that the Bush administration didn't give enough money for them to get back on their feet and anyone with any business sense would know that GM would be better off restructuring.
Bush just didn't want another stain on his legacy. I wouldn't either if I were him.
Lad 12:48PM (6/09/2009)
In this case Mr. Bush did the correct thing provided he was not aware of the bad condition GM was in at an earier time; the question becomes when did he know GM was in trouble?
Judging by the many screwups in the Bush/Cheney whitehouse, it's just as well he left it for Obama...Obama couldn't do worse.
Randy 2:50PM (6/09/2009)
Where did all the finger pointers go? LOL - The former VP Throws the former PRES under the bus!
Wonderfully done! I couldn't have asked for a better present for my birthday next month...
Fernando 8:34AM (6/09/2009)
No surprise here really.
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Jei 9:03AM (6/09/2009)
Right. It was fairly obvious that the Bush Adm didn't really want to put any thought toward the auto industry. Everything was collapsing around them (at the 11th hour), and they didn't want to stand up and take action.
Frank 10:24AM (6/09/2009)
It was the right thing to do. The money Bush gave was a "bridge" to give the Obama admin time to formulate their plan for how they wanted to handle this. Both admins were talking to each other after the elections and this is what Obama wanted. It would be irresponsible for Bush to set a plan in action that Obama would then change (or try to change). Whaterver would be the final outcome of GM or Chrysler would happen under Obama and it would be wrong for the outgoing administration to pre-empt the new president at the 11th hour. Contrast this to the Clinton administration shenannigens including the off the wall executive decisions designed to make Bush look bad for reversing them (if arsenic levels in the water were sooo bad, why didn't Clinton issue his mult-billion dollar expensive exec decision in year one of his presidency instead of at the *end* of year 8?).
BigWill 8:35AM (6/09/2009)
This is news? It was pretty much a given that Bush wasn't going to have the GM bankruptcy as the last major event of his administration. He would have also been accused of letting it happen just to screw over Obama.
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C.W. 8:47AM (6/09/2009)
exactly.
why in the world WOULD he have initiated anything with no time left? the Left would be all over him right now exalting their Messiah even more. Politics aside, if it needs to happen, it's better to start and finish under one administration. that way all of the players are the same. each administration brings in their own treasury heads and it would have been ugly. leave Bush out of GM digging their grave, and Obama stepping in the socialize the company.
Jay 9:01AM (6/09/2009)
So instead the right thing to do was spend $17.4 billion dollars of taxpayer money knowing full well that they were going to go bankrupt anyway.
I hate politics on both sides. Stop playing these childish games and stop wasting money because of your ego.
Polly Prissy Pants 9:04AM (6/09/2009)
That's exactly what's wrong with our political leaders today: "Let's do what looks best for me instead of what's best for the country" even though THAT'S YOUR JOB.
Thunderbuck 11:39AM (6/09/2009)
I frankly wish Dick Cheney would keep his mouth shut and retire to that "undisclosed location" we kept hearing about.
In this case, though, I'll cut him and Bush some slack and try to avoid the spin on this. Yes, this COULD be taken pretty negatively against the Bush Administration in its final days, but there's merit in the argument that it was right for them to leave it for the new administration to handle.
There IS some question about how badly the economy in general got messed up in the previous years, and how that contributed to the conditions that have brought Chrysler and GM to the brink, but I'm confident history will deal with that in the years to come.