Congressional Members React to the Firing of GM CEO

The Mississippi delegation is split over what the federal government should do with the U-S auto industry. Matt Laslo reports from Washington.

NARR: Mississippi Republicans are up in arms about the Obama administration’s decision to remove the head of General Motors.

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“I think it’s troubling.”

That’s Senator Roger Wicker. He and other Republicans say the White House is exerting too much influence over private industries . . . especially GM. President Obama has given the company sixty days to present a sustainable business model, or he threatens to cut off its government subsidy. House Republican Gregg Harper says that could be a good thing.

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“So I think the first step here is to make sure we don’t invest, lets say, any deeper or any further than what we’ve done. This is what goes along with it, when you get your hooks into something it, then that control then becomes a part of the government control when it should be apart of the private sector.”

Democrats disagree. Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor says the auto industry is too important to collapse.

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“It is in our national security interest to keep what’s left of the American industrial base to keep the tanks and the Amtrak’s, and the other things and all the suppliers that go with that, the alternators, the generators. It took way too long to build the mine resistant vehicles, approximately 18,000 of them, that are saving lives every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

But time is running out for GM and Chrysler. Some Democrats are now saying federal assistance should not be unlimited and there may come a time when bankruptcy is the best option for the two companies.
From Capitol News Connection , I’m Matt Laslo, M-P-B News.