Time running short on auto deal

With congressional Democrats and Republicans unable to
reach agreement on an auto bailout Friday, further doubt is cast on the Big
Three’s hopes for staving off bankruptcy.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank
(D-Mass.) said lawmakers need to look beyond past mistakes and prevent the
failure of the automobile industry.

{mosads}“It would be nice if we could line up the people who made
mistakes and punish them without hurting the innocent, but we can’t,” Frank
said. Bankruptcy for automakers, he said, would be an “unmitigated disaster.”

But House Republicans are still reluctant to send any
more taxpayer dollars to the automakers.

“What we need is a solution,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus
(Ala.), the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee. 

Bachus said if automakers can’t be saved without taxpayer
money, the federal government should allow them to use the $25 billion Congress
has allocated for making cars more fuel-efficient.

That is the stance of President Bush, and it has been
rejected by Democratic leaders, continuing Washington’s stalemate on helping
Detroit.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) painted a dismal portrait of the progress made on reaching a compromise.
His comments to reporters came after his panel on Thursday heard from the Big Three
CEOs, who pleaded for nearly $34 billion in aid.

Dodd said he is not sure how lawmakers can proceed with
plans to help the industry without “some consensus of both the House and the
Senate of how to move forward,” and he stepped up pressure on the White House
to take executive action to deal with the problem in the short term.

Dodd suggested that, in case a congressional solution is
impossible, he intends to talk with the Treasury Department and the Federal
Reserve to send a stopgap amount of money to the industry. That could be a
short-term solution in tandem with a congressional package, or a stand-alone
effort.

In Friday’s House hearing with the car executives, senior
Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski (Pa.) floated a similar idea.