Car Czar Rattner: Ford Would Have Shut Without GM, Chrysler Bailouts

Ford, the only large U.S. automaker that didn’t receive a U.S. government bailout, would’ve failed along with General Motors and Chrysler if President Barack Obama’s administration hadn’t rescued the industry, said Steven Rattner, who headed Obama’s auto task force.

“Ford would have closed because it wouldn’t have been able to get parts, because the parts industry in this country was in arguably worse shape than the assemblers,” Rattner said today at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

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Rattner, now chairman of the Willett Advisors LLC investment firm, led the $63.4 billion bailout in 2009 of GM and Chrysler, which he said would have fired all their workers and ceased to exist without the bailout.

President George W. Bush, who preceded Obama, “did the right thing” by beginning the bailout process, giving $17.5 billion to GM and Chrysler in 2008, Rattner said.To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net