Ford Scores PR Cred by Declining Bailout Cash

CEOs of America's automakers will renew plea for bailout today

(NEWSER) - The Big Three CEOs are heading back to Washington this week, and this time two of them will be driving, the Wall Street Journal reports—Alan Mulally in a Ford Escape hybrid, and Rick Wagoner in a Chevrolet Malibu hybrid. The CEOs will attempt Thursday to persuade Congress to extend them $25 billion in low-cost loans, based on reorganization plans to be submitted today. More»

Senate Democrat enlisted to work on compromise package

(NEWSER) - Sen. Chris Dodd welcomed the Big Three CEOs back to the Senate Banking Committee today by declaring his support for an auto bailout, the AP reports. Chariman Dodd said inaction would be akin to playing “Russian Roulette with the economy.” He praised the automakers for making a better case for assistance than the financial industry, which won a $700 billion rescue plan. More»

Legislators put screws to extra-shiny tin cups

(NEWSER) - Take three auto execs, add the private jets each took to a Capitol Hill hearing to beg for a federal bailout, and you get a recipe for the heaping helping of humble pie legislators served up, writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. "There's a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, DC, and people coming off them with tin cups in their hands," said one New York congressman at the disastrous hearing. More»

(NEWSER) - The CEOs of the Big Three automakers told the Senate today that a $25 billion bailout of the industry is necessary to prevent "catastrophic" effects on the economy, the New York Times reports. “If the domestic industry were allowed to fail,” said GM's Rick Wagoner, it would mean “three million jobs lost within the first year.” Meanwhile, Chrysler's Robert Nardelli disclosed that his company, like GM, is on the verge of bankruptcy. More»

General Services Administration spends $129M on competition

(NEWSER) - The federal government isn't letting its stake in General Motors and Chrysler stop it from doing business with rivals, the New York Times reports. Ford, the only one of the Big Three not to receive bailout funds, won the biggest order in the General Services Administration's recent stimulus-funded $287 million purchase of fuel-efficient cars for the federal fleet. More»