Apparently, it was the United Auto Workers that killed the bailout deal:
An eleventh-hour effort to salvage a proposed $14 billion rescue plan for the auto industry collapsed late last night as Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on the timing of deep wage cuts for union workers, killing the legislative plan and threatening America’s carmakers with bankruptcy.
“We’re not going to get to the finish line. That’s just the way it is. There’s too much difference between the two sides,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced after 10 p.m., concluding a marathon negotiating session that ended in gridlock. Reid warned that financial markets could plummet when trading opens this morning.
“I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow. It’s not going to be a pleasant sight,” he said.
The legislation would have provided emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, which have said they face imminent collapse without federal help. The high-stakes talks broke down over when the wages of union workers would be slashed to the same level as those paid to nonunion workers at U.S. plants of foreign automakers such as Toyota and Honda.
Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), the lead GOP negotiator, said the sides were on the brink of a deal on the amendment he had offered. Representatives from the United Auto Workers — who were present for most of the negotiations — would not agree to a specific date, Corker said.
“We offered any day — any day — in 2009,” Corker said.
From my perspective, this may have been the one good thing that UAW has done in years.
