Carmakers' Bailout Pleas Hit Senate Skepticism

The Big Three CEOs apologized for past blunders. "We made mistakes, which we're learning from," GM chief Rick Wagoner said. Ford CEO Alan Mulally also acknowledged missteps, saying his company's approach once was "If you build it, they will come."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., left, talks with Semate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., left, talks with Semate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during the opening ceremony of the new United States Capitol Visitor Center on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

(AP)

But as a result of the misjudgments, he said, "we are really focused."

The Bush administration wants the aid to be drawn from an existing $25 billion program to help the industry retool its plants to make their vehicles more fuel-efficient.

But congressional budget analysts said Thursday that would yield only $7.5 billion in short-term loans.

The auto executives made the trip from Detroit in new-model hybrid autos made by their respective companies, two weeks after a first appeal for $25 billion in which they were chided for flying on private jets to beg for money.

Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli promised that his company, recipient of a previous government-subsidized rescue loan in the 1970s that it repaid, would reimburse taxpayers by 2012 this time and would devote itself to manufacturing "fuel-efficient cars and trucks that people want to buy."

Asked whether the carmakers would agree to a setup like the one established for Chrysler's 1979 bailout, with a federal restructuring trustee who had some of the same powers as a bankruptcy court, all three executives indicated they would. Ford's Mulally added, "I probably need to think about that a little bit. It sounds right, but I just don't know all of the implications."

Lawmakers still complained of sticker shock, noting that the bailout's price tag had jumped $9 billion since the trio last appeared.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee, pressed the automakers to explain why, and explain how the sum would not simply "prop up a failed business model for a few months ... and how are you going to pay it back?"

Democrats, too, questioned whether an auto bailout would amount to investing taxpayer money in a failing enterprise.

"Be honest and tell me ... just tell me if things stay the way they are now, are you going to be back in a year" asking for more money? asked Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.