A series of polls this week found that most Americans oppose giving more government funds to struggling automakers. "The nation has spoken, Michigan, and we are all alone on this business of auto bailouts," reports the Detroit News.
The first poll, conducted by the New York Times and CBS news, found that nearly 70 percent of Americans believe "struggling automotive companies, which are seeking billions of dollars in additional loans from the government and which are shedding tens of thousands of workers, should not receive any more taxpayer money to help them survive." You can check out the full poll to see the questions and results for yourself.
A Washington Post-ABC news poll reported similar findings. Results from that poll indicate that while most Americans think the Obama administration is on the right track with regard to bank regulation and mortgage assistance, "the Detroit automakers are another issue: Sixty-eight percent of Americans oppose providing them with the additional federal loans they've requested, even if needed to stave off bankruptcy - another of the relatively few issues on which substantial majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans agree," ABC reports.
The opposition to the automotive bailout may stem from a lack of confidence in industry executives. The Boston Globe reports that a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that only 5 percent of the Americans they surveyed have confidence in auto executives.
It's not only rank and file Americans who oppose the bailout. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that giving more money to struggling domestic automakers "leaves me with the sick feeling that we are subsidizing the losers and for only one reason: because they claim that their funerals would cost more than keeping them on life support." Instead, Friedman suggests, "As we invest taxpayer money, let's do it with an eye to starting a new generation of biotech, info-tech, nanotech and clean-tech companies, with real innovators, real 21st-century jobs and potentially real profits for taxpayers. Our motto should be, "Start-ups, not bailouts: nurture the next Google, don't nurse the old G.M.'s."
Despite opinion turning against the domestic auto industry, some believe the Obama administration is still committed to saving Chrysler and GM. The Detroit News quotes Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendall as saying, "The president is a very smart guy. I think he knows a bailout of the auto industry is unpopular with the country at large. . .But I think he believes in the right circumstances it's also crucial to the economy."
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