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Obama touts 'bet' on auto bailouts in State of the Union
President Obama touted his handling of the auto bailouts in his third
State of the Union address Tuesday evening, saying the turnaround of the
American car companies offered a blueprint for other struggling
manufacturing sectors.
“On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of
collapse," he said. "Some even said we should let it die. With a million
jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen.”
Obama has sought to turn the once-unpopular auto bailouts into a
political advantage in his bid for re-election. He noted Tuesday “in exchange for help, we demanded
responsibility."
“We got workers and automakers to settle their differences,” he said.
“We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors
is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown
faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing
billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire
industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.
Obama added that “what’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.
“It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh,” he said, referencing cities located in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Obama’s re-election campaign has made clear it intends to tout the auto bailouts in Midwestern states that rely heavily on auto manufacturing. He and other Democrats have pointed to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s widely read op-ed in The New York Times in the fall of 2008 that argued against the federal government assisting General Motors and Chrysler.
The article was titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” and in it Romney said giving the auto companies financial assistance in 2008 would be worse for them than allowing them to go bankrupt.
“If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye,” Romney wrote in the article. “It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”
Romney has since defended his position, saying that the conditions that were eventually placed on the federal government's assistance by the Obama administration mirrored his proposals.
