President Barack Obama’s auto team will spend Monday at the Detroit home of the Big Three as the administration begins to narrow its options for helping the reeling auto sector.
The field trip wraps up nearly three weeks of fact gathering by the team since General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC submitted their rescue plans to the Treasury Department in the hopes of winning billions more in government loans. Ford Motor Co. is not seeking government aid.
While in Detroit the auto team plans to tour production and engineering facilities and to test drive the Chevy Volt, GM’s electric car that is the centerpiece of its technology push. The visits will feature the GM Technical Center and the Chrysler Dodge Truck Center. The team will then hold discussions with GM and Chrysler officials, as well as top representatives from the UAW.
The weeks ahead are filled with peril for both the White House and the auto makers as administration officials face a March 31 deadline for deciding whether to give the companies nearly $22 billion more in federal assistance.
Political pressure is mounting against an open-ended bailout of GM and Chrysler, with strong support in many quarters for the companies to reorganize through bankruptcy. But with the nation’s unemployment rate now over 8%, President Obama and his team are wary of undermining the UAW and sending another economic shockwave through the heart of the country’s industrial belt.
| 
|