Auto Industry Bailout, Bailout | featured news

...The ad also comes on the heels of Mitt Romney’s mistaken claim in a speech last week that Chrysler was moving Jeep production to China — a statement immediately denied by the auto manufacturer. Yet the story apparently was too good for Romney to give up, because the ad repeats the claim, tweaked slightly to make it more accurate.

Under the bright lights of a high school football field in Defiance, Ohio, Mitt Romney's opposition to the 2009 auto bailout reared its head again as a campaign issue that could help decide the result of this critical swing state.

In seeking support in Michigan, Obama speaks frequently about how the federal bailout of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group led to GM's resurgence as the world's No. 1 automaker and 32,000 more auto-related jobs in the state since the companies emerged from their 2009 managed bankruptcies. Romney opposed the move, even writing a New York Times opinion piece in 2008 that carried the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

President Barack Obama told more than 1600 current and hourly autoworkers on Tuesday that if Republicans had been in charge they would have left the auto industry "out to dry."

Auto sales are growing so fast that Detroit can barely keep up. Three years after the U.S. auto industry nearly collapsed, sales of cars and trucks are surging.

Whether voters see a principled stand or ruthless capitalism in Mitt Romney’s 2008 opposition to the auto industry rescue will affect how he fares in Michigan’s primary and likely beyond.

General Motors on Wednesday finalized terms for a stock offering of about $13 billion to repay a controversial taxpayer-funded bailout and reduce the Treasury to a minority shareholder.