Below The Beltway

Having failed to build cars that people want to buy, the big three American automakers were in Washington yesterday begging for another bailout:

DETROIT — Executives of Detroit’s Big Three automakers traveled to Washington on Thursday to press their case for more financial aid from the federal government because of the bleak prospects for their industry.

And those prospects are likely to dim further on Friday, when General Motors and Ford are expected to report deeper job and production cuts, along with huge third-quarter losses. Analysts expect each to report losses of more than $2 billion, excluding special charges or write-downs.

The meeting in Washington, with Capitol Hill’s top Democrats — the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid — centered on a request by G.M., the Ford Motor Company and Chrysler for up to $25 billion in loans to help the companies as they burn through their cash cushions during the worst sales market in 15 years.

The loan request is in addition to $25 billion in low-interest loans to be available from the Energy Department to assist automakers in developing more fuel-efficient vehicles.

And, perhaps not coincidentally, the Treasury Department is apparently planning to expand the financial services bailout beyond the financial services industry:

The federal government is preparing to take tens of billions of dollars in ownership stakes in an array of companies outside the banking sector, dramatically widening the scope of the Treasury Department’s rescue effort beyond the $250 billion set aside for traditional financial firms, government and industry officials said.

Treasury officials are finalizing the new program, which could ultimately involve hundreds of billions of the $700 billion rescue package, though the initiative is unlikely to be announced until the end of next week at the earliest.

Two industry sources familiar with the planning said the Treasury is holding off because it wants to make sure President-elect Barack Obama is on board and will not reverse the course once he takes office in January. But an administration official contested that explanation, saying the Treasury simply wants to give its initial bank plan a chance before injecting more money into the financial system.

Since the announcement of the program to inject capital into banks, a number of industries, including automakers, insurers and specialty lenders for small businesses have approached the Treasury with hat in hand. Some have been turned away because they are not banks and thus not eligible for capital.

The new initiative would make it easier for the Treasury to aid a wider variety of firms if their troubles put the wider financial system at risk, government and industry officials said. These companies would still have to be financial firms that fall under federal regulators.

Several companies, including GMAC, an auto financing company, and CapitalSource, a commercial lender in Bethesda, are seeking ways to restructure themselves as banks or thrifts, which entails submitting to much tighter federal regulation. If other firms follow suit, the trend would vastly expand government oversight into a variety of industries.

The Treasury is also making progress on an initiative that would provide relief to homeowners at risk of foreclosure. Several proposals are on the table, including one crafted by Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who wants to spend about $40 billion to modify the mortgages for as many as 3 million homeowners. But several government and industry sources close to the matter said Treasury officials view Bair’s plan as flawed and are seeking ways to revise it.

So if you haven’t gotten your bailout yet, just hold on a few months because it will probably come soon.