Bailout Watch 238: Obama: “A Plan Would Be Nice”

Barack Obama’s turd blossom David Axelrod appeared on ABC’s “This Week” today (via Reuters), quietly backing the president-elect away from is electorally-necessary support for an automaker giveaway. “We all have a stake in the survival and the prosperity of the auto industry,” said the future senior White House adviser. “But in order to do that, they’re going to have to retool and rationalize their industry for the future,” he said. “If they don’t do that, then there’s very little that taxpayers can do to help them.” This puts Obama back on the same page as the congressional Democrats, who have been markedly less supportive of a bailout since the Detroit CEO’s miserable performance before the House Financial Services Committee this week. “There must be a business model that they work off of,”  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tells CBS’ “Face the Nation. “No one would invest in a company without seeing that, nor should taxpayer dollars be invested without seeing that business model and that business plan.” The real question then seems to be, what do Obama, Pelosi, et al expect to see in the way of a new plan come December 2? Because other than being sure that they want to see a plan, we haven’t got much from them in the way of specifics.

Reuters »