Below The Beltway

When it comes to the financial problems facing the Big Three automakers, the Bush Administration seems intent on doing “something”:

Detroit automakers, teetering on the brink of collapse, are receiving strong signals from the White House that short-term help is on the way while a key senator says the relief package could reach $15 billion for GM and Chrysler.

President George W. Bush said a bankruptcy in the U.S. auto industry would hurt the economy while the U.S. deals with the recession. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have said they could run out of cash within weeks without support from the government.

“An abrupt bankruptcy for autos could be devastating for the economy,” Bush told reporters Monday aboard Air Force One during a surprise trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. He said they were “now in the process of working with the stakeholders on a way forward.”

In Detroit, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he expects GM to get $8 billion and Chrysler $7 billion from the Bush administration. He said the Treasury secretary likely would be tapped as a “car czar” to oversee restructuring of the companies.

Bush wouldn’t give a precise timetable but said, “This will not be a long process because of the economic fragility of the autos.”

Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, cautioned that “if the automobile industry goes belly up now, there’s a deep concern that that would be a major shock to the system.”

The Treasury Department has held discussions with GM and Chrysler and reviewed financial data from the car makers. It said Monday that no decisions had been made on what type of support it may provide to the companies.

The administration, following the defeat of a $14 billion bailout package in the Senate last week, is weighing several options. They include using money from the $700 billion financial bailout fund to provide loans to the carmakers or using money from the fund as collateral for emergency loans the automakers could get from the Federal Reserve. Bush reiterated that tapping the financial bailout fund remains an option.

This is likely to be the Bush Administration’s final “Screw You” to those Republicans who still believe in limited government and fiscal conservatism and, in some sense, they deserve it for not speaking out loud enough over the past eight years.