Former Vice President Dick Cheney said the Bush administration should have let General Motors go bankrupt instead of bailing out the troubled auto giant, according to The Hill.
Cheney told CNBC’s Larry Kudlow that he disagreed from the beginning with Bush’s decision to provide a short-term loan to the embattled automaker. At the time, the move was intended to keep the GM solvent until then-President-elect Obama could take the reins. A month before he left office, Bush announced a $13.4 billion bridge loan for General Motors and Chrysler.
"Well, some of us at the time wanted GM to go bankrupt, go to Chapter 11," Cheney said. "The decision was made that, in the final analysis, since our administration was almost over and a brand-new team was about to take over, that the president wanted, in effect, not to take a step that wasn't necessarily going to be followed by his successor," Cheney said.
"And we came up with a short-term package, in effect, that got us through the–through the inauguration," Cheney said.
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