Filed under: Government/Legal
With a multi-volume list of issues that a presidential hopeful could discuss, we aren't sure why Mitt Romney keeps circling back to the auto industry bailouts, but here we are again. He's lately swinging his stick at the U.S. Treasury Department for not having sold its 26.5-percent stake in General Motors, accusing it of holding back on the stock sale to avoid having to report a multi-billion dollar loss before the election.
At GM's current stock price, the government would lose about $16 billion by sellings its 500 million shares, a number that hasn't much changed from several months ago. Romney said the government has "no reason" for not selling, and a report of his interview with The Detroit News says that "he'd sell the stock quickly if he wins the White House." A Treasury spokesman responded with "We have to balance maximizing recovery for the taxpayers with the speed of exit."
On top of that, Romney said that if he becomes POTUS, he would take another look at Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, believing that "The best approach is to try and build vehicles that people want, rather than having the government telling the companies what they must make." It's a line we've heard (and even uttered) often, but the nexus of government regulations, consumer desires, viable business models and long-term industry concerns is a moving target shifty enough to confuse quantum physicists.
Either way, it's clearly fair to expect more jabs from Romney at President Obama and the auto bailout as the campaign season grinds toward election day.
Romney vows to dump federal stake in GM quickly originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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