IG: Obama GM, Chrysler moves made job losses

IG report says Obama GM, Chrysler moves needlessly accelerated job losses Washington Examiner
By: Mark Tapscott

A report by the Treasury Department's Special Inspector General for the Toxic Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) contends that President Obama's push for General Motors and Chrysler to close thousands of dealerships across the country as part of their government bailouts "may have substantially contributed to the shuttering of thousands of small businesses and thereby potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls, all based on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decisions' broader economic impacts."

The SIGTARP report further contends, according to Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking minority member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that it is questionable whether the closings were "either necessary for the sake of the companies' economic survival or prudent for the nation's economic recovery."

Issa, who has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration's handling of the GM and Chrysler government takeovers, said the SIGTARP report should "serve as a wake-up call as to the implications of politically-orchestrated bailouts and how putting decisions about private enterprise in the hands of political appointees and bureaucrats can lead to costly and unintended consequences."

The California Republican also said the report will say "GM did not consistently follow its stated criteria and that there was little or no documentation of the decision-making process to terminate or retain dealerships with similar profiles, or of the appeals process” and that “making termination decisions with little or no transparency and making a review of many of these decisions impossible…”

You can read the full text of the report here (It's a big pdf, so it may take a bit for it to load). And The New York Times' Nick Bunley has an excellent summary of the report and the background that led to it.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/IG-report-says-Obama-GM-Chrysler-moves-needlessly-accelerated-job-losses-98709459.html#ixzz0vCEbDd9H