Economy & Budget

General Motors has exited from federal bankruptcy protection, according to multiple reports Friday morning.

After having filed for bankruptcy on June 1, the newly-reorganized automaker will reemerge backed by a substantial ownership stake by the federal government.

The Obama administration and its auto task force had helped coordinate a prepackaged bankruptcy for the storied automaker after providing months of assistance to GM, as well as Chrysler.

President Obama himself has staked some of his legacy on the success or failure of GM over the long haul; during the process of easing GM into bankruptcy, his administration requested the resignation of the company's CEOs.

The hefty government investment in GM -- expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars when all's said and done -- has not been without criticism. Conservative Republicans have bemoaned the excessive involvement in the affairs of the market, while more broadly, lawmakers have complained about the adverse effects suffered by dealers and manufacturers that were shut down over the course of GM's restructuring.

The new GM's top executives will brief the media this morning.

The Obama administration's promises of the effects of the stimulus package it pushed for were "nonsense," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday.

"They're promoting policies that destroy jobs, not create jobs," Boehner said in a conference call organized by the Republican National Committee (RNC).

The call came after Democrats took aim at the House Republican leader by sending Vice President Biden to his district, and launching a web video and conference call targeting Boehner for, Democrats say, a misguided stance on the stimulus.

"Ohio families and small businesses in our state are concerned," Boehner said. "And they're wondering, Mr. Vice President, 'Where are the jobs?'"

The Ohio lawmaker said the administration's promises about the stimulus haven't been met, in terms of a stagnant unemployment rate and other poor economic indicators.

"It was all nonsense, because none of that's happened," he said.

Boehner also said he "guaranteed" that Republicans wouldn't pass initiatives like healthcare reform and climate change, which the leader referred to as a "government takeover of healthcare" and a "national energy tax," respectively.

Boehner wouldn't say, though, whether Republicans would try to repeal those priorities if the GOP takes over the House -- if the proposals, in their current form -- become law.

"We would not pass a national energy tax or a government takeover of healthcare," he said. "In the meantime we're going to do everything we can to prevent them from doing so."

A bill to undo a critical component of the Obama administration's bid to restructure both General Motors and Chrysler through bankruptcy has now gained a majority of supporters in the House.

The Automobile Dealer Economic Rights Restoration Act has now secured 221 cosponsors in addition to Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.), who introduced the bill.

The legislation would force GM and Chrysler to restore auto dealers' franchise rights if the dealer requests such a thing. In essence, the bill could reopen as many as 789 Chrysler dealers and 1,300 GM dealerships each company had to close as part of the cuts leading to their bankruptcy proceedings.

Those filings were organized by the Obama administration and its auto task force, setting up a potential conflict between a normally friendly Congress and the White House.

It also pits the automakers against their onetime dealers.

"This legislation, if passed, would put our long-term viability at risk," GM spokesman Greg Martin told the Detroit Free Press.

An association of former dealers, meanwhile, praised the bill.

"A majority of the US House of Representatives, an astonishing 222 Members, and a quickly growing number in the Senate, from both parties, now fully recognize what is clear to the American people: the leadership of GM and Chrysler made a horrible mistake by their arbitrary termination of profitable dealerships," said Jack Fitzgerald and Alan Spitzer, the co-chairmen of the Committee to Restore Dealer Rights.

"Nobody is happy" with the way the economy has progressed, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Wednesday.

"It is bad right now," Solis told the Fox Business Network of the state of the economy. "Nobody is happy, and the president and I feel very strongly that we have to do everything we can to create jobs."

Still, Solis refused to predict when the economy might recover from its doldrums.

"It's hard for me to predict," she said. "I think it's going to take a while, and I think the president and the vice president have been very clear that this is something that we just didn't enter into two months ago, or four months ago -- this has been going on for more than two years."

And while the Labor secretary wouldn't say a second stimulus was necessary, she defended the $787 billion package signed into law earlier this year -- which Republicans have derided lately as having failed -- as having staved off more economic hardship.

"We could have seen much worse happen if we didn't have a stimulus program. I can tell you that," Solis argued.

Watch a video excerpt of the interview below:

A White House budget official threw cold water on suggestions that the Obama administration is looking at another stimulus to boost the economy.

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that the focus is on getting out the $787 billion recovery package passed in February.

"No one in this administration is talking about a second stimulus," Nabors said Wednesday during a House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee hearing on the first stimulus.

His remarks came after suggestions by Republicans that the president and his advisers are considering another large spending measure.

Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), the top Republican on the committee, reminded Nabors that Laura Tyson, an economic advisor to the president, said Tuesday that another stimulus might be necessary because of the continued economic struggles.

Nabors, however, said that Tyson, a member of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is an "outside economic adviser."

"She does not work for the administration," Nabors said.

Republicans' votes against the $787 billion stimulus earlier this year have been "vindicated" by the persistently sluggish economic activity, one House Republican argued Wednesday.

"I think that those who had voted against the bill have been vindicated by this," Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said during an appearance on the conservative news radio show "Dateline Washington."

Every single Republican in the House of Representatives voted against the stimulus package, while three centrist Republicans crossed party lines to pass the package in the Senate.

Echoing calls from fellow House Republicans, Goodlatte said that the Congress should redirect unspent stimulus funds toward tax breaks -- or nothing at all.

"We should do that, by the way, not with new funds but by reappropriating the funds that were put into the stimulus package, or we should simply stop spending them altogether," he said.

The global economic recovery is "uneven" and "expected to be sluggish," the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Wednesday in its regular update to its outlook on the world economy.

"The global economy is beginning to pull out of a recession unprecedented in the post

There's no evidence yet that a second stimulus package is needed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday.

Reacting to some House Democratic leaders and Obama administration officials who haven't ruled out another plan to bolster the economy, Reid said that there needed to be more patience to spend out what was alloted by the Congress in its $787 billion plan earlier this year.

"As far as I'm concerned, there's no showing to me that another stimulus is needed," Reid said after caucus luncheons today.

"Just slightly over 10 percent of the stimulus money has been given out for the places that go," he said. "So a little less than 90 percent still needs to be put out to the American people, and we're in the process of doing that."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he's "open" to a second stimulus package, but that it's too soon to say whether it's needed.

"As Bernanke said, the crops have been planted, the shoots are now appearing above the ground," Reid added.

An economic adviser to President Obama suggested today that the U.S. might need a second stimulus package, Bloomberg reports.

In a speech in Singaore today, Laura Tyson, a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and the head of the Council of Economic Advisers under Bill Clinton, said the $787 billion stimulus was "a bit too small," and while it will help, "the real economy is a sicker patient."

Tyson seemed to echo Joe Biden's recent remarks that the administraiton had "misread" how bad the economy was.

"The economy is worse than we forecast on which the stimulus program was based," said Tyson. "We probably have already 2.5 million more job losses than anticipated."

Tyson emphasized that she was not speaking for the administration. Obama, Biden and other officials have called it premature to consider a second stimulus.

A second stimulus bill is "probably needed," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) argued Monday.

Going further than some fellow Democrats -- including Vice President Biden -- who haven't ruled out a second stimulus, Whitehouse said that such a package is "on the table."

"We may very well need to do a second stimulus," Whitehouse said during an appearance on ABC's "Top Line" webcast Monday afternoon. "I think that it is probably needed."

"We're going to need to have some further discussion, probably before the end of the year," he added, saying the Congress would need to look at the economic indicators at that time.

Asked yesterday whether a second stimulus was necessary, Biden said "it's premature to make that judgment."

But some Democratic leaders in Congress have nixed the suggestion of a second stimulus.

"I don't think anybody can honestly say that we're satisfied with the results so far of the stimulus," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Fox News Sunday this past weekend. But Hoyer said that it's too soon to have a second bill.

"We have to get the money that is already in the stimulus bill out, and we're looking at that," he said. "We certainly want to see how this develops over the next few months."

On healthcare, Whitehouse also seemed skeptical that the Senate would meet its self-imposed August recess deadline to pass a healthcare reform bill.

"I think it's going to take a lot of work to do that, but I'm a long way from ruling it out," he said of doing that, adding that it is still the intention of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and President Obama to have a healthcare vote before Congress breaks for recess.