Michelle Malkin Sets Record Straight

Over the next few days the DNC convention will try to rally UAW workers by claiming that it took Barack Obama to save General Motors.  Michelle Malkin sets the record straight.

[L]ike all of the economic success stories manufactured by the White House, the $85 billion government handout is a big fat farce.

“I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American
industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back,”
Obama bragged on the campaign trail. Here’s the inconvenient story they
won’t tell you:

GM is once again flirting with bankruptcy despite massive government
purchases propping up its sales figures. GM stock is rock-bottom. Losses
continue to be revised in the wrong direction. According to The Detroit
News, “The Treasury Department says in a new report the government
expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout.
That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.”

The claims that GM paid back its taxpayer-funded loans “in full” — a
story peddled in campaign ads narrated by Hollywood actor Tom Hanks —
were debunked by the Treasury Department’s TARP watchdog this summer. GM
still owes nearly $30 billion of the $50 billion it received, and its
lending arm still owes nearly $15 billion of the more than $17 billion
it received. Bailout watchdog Mark Modica of the National Legal and
Policy Center adds: “In addition to U.S. taxpayers anteing up, Canada
put in over $10 billion, and GM was relieved of about $28 billion of
bondholder obligations as UAW claims were protected. That’s an
improvement of almost $90 billion to the balance sheet, and the company
still lags the competition.”

While the Obama administration wraps the auto bailout in red, white
and blue, it’s foreign workers and overseas plants that are reaping
redistributive rewards.

GM has increased its manufacturing capacity in China by an estimated 55
percent after the bailout, according to industry watchers. GM’s Dan
Akerson crowed at the Beijing auto show earlier this year: “One of our
aims is to help grow a new generation of automotive engineers, designers
and leaders right here in China.” The U.S. auto giant’s ventures with
the Communist regime include Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co., Ltd.; GM
China Advanced Technical Center; FAW-GM Light Duty Commercial Vehicle
Co., Ltd., in Harbin, Heilongjiang; FAW-GM’s Changchun plant in
Changchun, Jilin; FAW-GM Hongta Yunnan Automobile Manufacturing Co.,
Ltd., in Qujing, Yunnan; and Shanghai Chengxin Used Car Operation and
Management Co., Ltd.