[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Page 24453]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY BAILOUT

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, a lot of comments have been made about the 
automobile bailout. We are in a situation, because of the extreme 
effect on our entire economy over the past several months, where there 
is a legitimate issue of cashflow rather than the innovation or lack 
thereof that has gone into the automobile industry. I am favorably 
disposed to supporting this loan provision, which is what it is, if the 
right requirements are placed in the proposal. I should point out, for 
all of the information that has gone back and forth over the past 2 
hours, the irony that Senator Dorgan mentioned, that the chief of 
Merrill Lynch is today arguing for a $10 million bonus for a company 
that had a loss of almost $12 billion last year. That is a private 
company. I won't pass any commercial judgment on that. But it does 
stand in stark contrast to what the CEO of Ford has proposed, going to 
$1 a year, if we can inject some cashflow into their business to 
attempt to get them through this period and back into a situation where 
they can properly manage their future.

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