Taxpayers Set to Lose $30+ Billion on the Auto Bailout

by Seton Motley - 4/12/2012

In 2012 reelection mode, President Obama has routinely chastised Mitt Romney and we Conservatives for wanting General Motors (GM) and Chrysler to go through bankruptcy...bailout-free.
In 2009, President Obama finished handing GM and Chrysler $85 billion in bailout money and then...had them go through bankruptcy.

Which - as Romney and we Conservatives have pointed out - they could and should have done for free.

In late 2009, President Obama told us that we would make money on the auto bailout.

In late 2011, the Administration begrudgingly admitted that we’ll lose $23.6 billion.

That’s a “success?”

And - as with most things Obama Administration - their numbers are uber-fudged.

This is, after all, the Administration that as part of tracking the nearly $1 trillion in “successful” “stimulus” money created fake Congressional districts - in which they “created or saved” imaginary jobs.

The Administration’s $23.6 billion auto bailout loss number includes a $9.3 billion hit on the 500+ million GM stock shares We the People now own as a result of the bailout.

But that’s a fudge-y number.

Right now, we’re actually losing nearly $15 billion on our shares. On a stock that dropped by a third just after the bailout, and has basically flatlined ever since.

So that ups the auto bailout loss to about $30 billion. At least.

Because, again, we’re having to take at face value the rest of the Obama Administration’s always highly irregular math. On the GM side - and the Chrysler side. A very difficult proposition indeed.

The total auto bailout loss is undoubtedly - probably dramatically - higher than $30 billion. And counting.

Only the biggest of Big Government proponents can consider this titanic loss a “success.”