Pelosi: GM and Chrysler should’ve gone bankrupt months ago

President Bush should have forced General Motors and Chrysler into a prepackaged bankruptcy months ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday.

“I wish it was what President Bush had done six months ago. I think it is very important for the industry to survive,” Pelosi said in an interview with the Detroit News and other journalists. The Speaker said that had the automakers been in a prepackaged bankruptcy half a year ago, the companies would be better off than they are now.

The Speaker also showed no remorse for ousted GM CEO Rick Wagoner, who many other lawmakers had praised for his work and characterized as a “sacrificial lamb.”

“The performance of some of the management of the companies is stunning to me, so I’m not shedding a tear for Mr. Wagoner’s departure,” she said. “You lose billions of dollars a year. You get millions of dollars in salary and you get $20 million to leave.”

Pelosi said that prepackaged bankruptcy is still the way to go, though it could have been accomplished earlier.

“People were saying a prepackaged bankruptcy would be the way to go” last fall, Pelosi said. “You could do it in weeks or a month and a half or two.”