Ya know we did have a couple of exciting days in Washington I don’t know if any of you were able to make it but it was quite an experience. But we really appreciated that opportunity. The opportunity to go there and to tell the story of the auto industry because there is allot of misconceptions out there. But the purpose of us gathering here today is to simply to say that it’s critically important that the Bush administration and Congress reach some agreement to take action to provide immediate assistance to the domestic auto companies.

Both the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders agree that immediate assistance is needed. And that the cost of not acting could be devastating both to the workers and retirees in the industry and to millions of other workers and retirees across this country and to our economy. And while there have been disagreements about the precise mechanism for providing assistance to the auto industry surely it should be possible to work out an agreement on how to proceed. Inaction is simply not an option. Without immediate assistance we could see and I stress, could see, a collapse of one or more of the domestic auto companies by the end of this year. The costs that would flow from this are simply too great.

You’ve heard the numbers. 3 million jobs. We have a million retirees and spouses and dependents that would be losing possibly their pension and or their health care benefits. The Federal Government would be saddled with huge pension and health care costs. Thousands of other business’, suppliers, dealers and others that depend on the auto industry would be in trouble. The current recession that we’re in would
be made much worse with revenues to Federal, State and local governments dropping, forcing cuts in vital public programs. And to prevent the these devastating consequences the Bush Administration and Congress needs to act now, today to provide an emergency bridge loan to the domestic companies. To at the very least to enable these companies to continue operations until the Obama administration can put in place a long term plan to move the industry forward. Congress must not adjourn without an agreement with the Bush Administration to move forward with an emergency rescue plan for the domestic auto companies.

Allow me to say that during the debate we heard in Washington we’ve heard a lot about competitiveness, we haven’t heard a lot about people. We through out the figure, the impact on 3 million people. But, lets go to the competitive piece of it first of all. Since 1992 states where we have transplants located have put in over 3 billion dollars in incentives. And I would point out that that’s the money that the state settled for. And I want to go specifically to Alabama if I could for a minute. We have

Hyundai Motor Company that got $252.8 million in incentives
Toyota there got $29 million in incentives
Honda $158 million
And Mercedes $253 million in incentives

It just seems odd to us that we can help the financial institutions in this country. That we can offer incentives to our competitors to come here and compete against us. But at the same time were willing to walk away from an industry that is the backbone of our economy. And while I read these figures to you which is the actual figures that we’ve been able to dig up I want to go to one particularly. And this is the plant, the Mercedes plant in Alabama. As it turned out as I’ve said Alabama offered $253 million dollars. But the state offered to train the workers, clear and improve the sites, upgrade the utilities, buy 2,500 vehicles and it’s estimated that incentive package totaled some where around $175 million dollars, oh excuse me $175,000. per employee to create those jobs there. And on top of this the state gave this auto maker a large parcel of land around $250 to $300 million dollars that was the same price or cost to them of building a facility.

So we can support our competition but we can’t support an industry that’s in need. And this need was not brought about because of what the industries done. I’ve heard some clambering for management to resign. Ok, lets just go back and look at the facts. First of all, will that fix the problem? I don’t know. If it does then let Congress put that as a stipulation. But I would only call your attention to the fact that we concluded negotiations last year with General Motors their stock was over $42. a share. What’s happened since? We saw what happened in the subprime, mortgages, we saw what’s happened to the credit crunch, we’ve watched a volatile stock market. And I’m not here to defend the CEO’s, my only question is, if that’ll fix the problem, do away with it. But how has that driven their stock all the way down from $42. to where it’s at today. It’s just, that to me becomes a distraction here. We talk about the number of vehicles that General Motors has, as an example, that gets over 30 miles to the gallon. We’ve just got a lot of well kept secrets here that we haven’t been able to get out. And we understand that people want to move forward with advanced technology vehicles. We’ve worked so hard with the industry to make that happen. And that’s where we come up with the Advanced Technology Vehicle Program that was approved by congress last year and then the money appropriated this year. But it’s not an easy tank out here. It’s a rough economy and the industry’s caught up because the consumers are caught up and can not get loans that have a reasonable interest rates on them. And if we can’t get people in the show rooms to buy automobiles, we’ve got a huge problem. We’ve got a huge problem in this country. Our fear is that if one of these companies goes over the cliff, that for sure it could take at least one of the others, if not both with them. Because of the way that the supply base is interlaced with the companies. So were here appealing to Congress and to the Administration to take action.

Now let me mention to you about the contract, again and this is one thing that we can defend in Washington, I would simply say this particular area, channel 7 gave the UAW men and women Newsmaker of the Year. Automotive News did the same thing. Then we go to the Detroit Free Press and Michiganian of the Year is passed onto the UAW and why was that done? It was done because everybody said the UAW set down with management and worked out a transformational agreement. Well, we’ve been transforming for a long time. It is not our fault that the economies in the tank, that consumer confidence is low. And what we need is a low interest bridge loan to get us through this very difficult economic time in our country.

http://www.wxyz.com/mostpopula…..b482c1e594

Members of Congress are really clueless about how rapidly this is snowballing; imagine what happens if 5 million people suddenly stop buying anything for the next two months because they don’t know if they’re going to have a job, or they’re laid off before Christmas.

I wrote about that earlier today. It’s suppose to be the highest earning cycle for retail. We have record unemployment. Hundreds of thousands have been told their companies are restructuring. And then the 2.5 issue. Reid is a bit lost by delaying. Do the bridge loan now. Make the business plan due on the same time table. Levin is right.

Our household got a pay cut yesterday. There’s worse coming, but I can’t write about it.

Members of Congress are really clueless about how rapidly this is snowballing; imagine what happens if 5 million people suddenly stop buying anything for the next two months because they don’t know if they’re going to have a job, or they’re laid off before Christmas.

He has some interesting things to say.

http://www.wxyz.com/mostpopula…..b482c1e594

Rhetorical question, right? ;-)

Congress does have leverage, but why do they always refuse to use it?