Have you seen that recent PR commercial starring the GM CEO Edward Whitacre Jr, who brags that the company has “repayed” it’s taxpayer-funded bailout? Well, surprise! It’s all bullshit.
General Motors lost $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009 and is still struggling to reorganize so the company can try to eke out a profit. This grim reality didn’t stop GM from making hay last week for supposedly paying back a $6.7 billion government loan five years ahead of schedule. What was left unsaid was that the automaker used another kitty of taxpayer cash to pay off the earlier government loan. This is an accounting shell game, not progress.
Previously unreleased documents supplied to The Washington Times reveal that GM specifically used funds it received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to pay off the government loan. According to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP, $4.7 billion of $6.7 billion – 70 percent – of what GM paid back came from TARP money the company received. “The one thing a lot of people overlook with this is where they got the money to pay the loan,” Mr. Barofsky told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on Wednesday. “It isn’t from earnings.” The numbers are based on a quarterly report Mr. Barofsky’s office provided to Congress last week.
……Despite misleadingly rosy propaganda fed to the press, the sad saga of General Motors’ transformation into Government Motors continues. As a ward of the state, GM has to do the bidding of its Washington masters and stay in lock step with the Democrats’ claims about the company’s condition. The truth is that GM’s condition remains poor.
……The only reason the company has been able to pay off its government loan is because the Obama administration has given GM more money than it has been able to spend. Hence, proceeds from one loan are sitting around to be used to pay down another loan.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/23/government-motors-repayment-fraud/
Welcome to Obamanomics.