Right Change: GM Gamble Doesn’t Rake in the Chips

When Obama bailed out the auto-industry, including GM, he says he “bet” on the company. What he means to say is that he gambled your tax dollars, and we think that he lost.

Despite his claims at a California rally on Tuesday that “three years later, the American auto industry has come roaring back,” The auto industry is still indebted $42 billion to US taxpayers, forcing us to question President Obama’s definition of the word ‘roaring.’

The GM stock has taken a tumble in recent weeks, reaching a new low on Monday in falling to $18.80 a share. The Detroit News reports the following:

“GM's low stock price has prevented the Treasury from exiting the automaker. It still holds 500 million shares of stock in the company as part of its $49.5 billion bailout, or a 32 percent stake.

It needs about $53 a share in order to break even on its GM bailout. At current prices, it would lose $17.25 billion on the bailout.”

On top of this debt, it remains unclear whether or not the company has made good on the money that has been reportedly paid back. $6.7 billion has been repaid with funds that were put into an account by TARP, meaning that GM has been repaying the government with their own money, not with GM earnings.

And yet Obama maintains the gall to call his bailout a success. He even put out a nearly 17-minute campaign video detailing the achievement, claiming that, with "business booming, (GM and Chrysler) repaid their loans."

We don’t know what’s worse: the fact that President Obama consistently misconstrues reality and warps fact, or the fact that he thinks the American people are dense enough to believe it. The numbers don’t lie: GM remains in a huge amount of debt that is a direct result of President Obama making risky bets with money from the American people. Here’s hoping that, come November, the voters cut his gambling off.

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