Industry News: Texas Senator Proposes Ending Auto Loan Program

[William Maley]

Back in 2007, the US Congress created the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing federal loan program to allow the US Government to loan out $25 billion to car manufacturers. The loans were created to help car manufacturers to retool factories and build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

But those loans have been slowly trickling out. Only $9.2 of the $25 billion set aside has been used. Also, the program has been taking a long time to approve companies for loans. So far Ford, Nissan, Fisker, and Tesla have already been approved for loans. Chrysler has been waiting for eighteen months while GM has pulled their application.

Now, a congressman from Texas wants to get rid of the program.

U.S. Rep. Bill Flores R-Texas., has introduced a bill into Congress to end the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program.

"My proposed bill to terminate the program prior to the end of the current fiscal year could potentially save additional billions in unused taxpayer dollars. Repealing the ATVM loan program will preserve much-needed funds to support projects that have the best chance of providing middle-class jobs here at home in the near term. It will also ensure that funds are provided for an immediate need, rather than letting them sit idly by waiting for a careless and inefficient bureaucratic process that has made little progress in the past three years.," Flores said.

The bill is being supported by many Republicans, but Democrats, led by Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow and Rep. Gary Peters, are against the bill.

The Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing federal loan program has been coming under a lot of scrutiny after solar panel manufacturer Solyndra LLC collapsed after receiving $528 million in loans. Last week, the White House launched a sixty-day review of the program.

Source: The Detroit News

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[loki]

horray! nix these interventions!

[Drew Dowdell]

It's not an intervention if companies can opt in or opt out.

[SoCalCTS]

No. Republicans have gotten enough concessions. If they want to axe this they need to give something up.

[A Horse With No Name]

No. Republicans have gotten enough concessions. If they want to axe this they need to give something up.

Bingo...and since when did the Idiotic Republicans fix anything or make anything better?

horray! nix these interventions!

Hooray, lets go back to the stone age..

Good thinking dude...and part of why i am not even voting for Republicans in local elections this year.

[Drew Dowdell]

I know it's hard to stay away from politics in a thread like this, but we've tiptoed over the line twice already..... lets back it up and discuss the merits of this story.

[loki]

change this to student loans

It's not an intervention if students can opt in or opt out.

....and what about an impending crisis, because they will not be paid back, because of a lack of good paying jobs?

the gov should not act like a bank(lender), they cannot judge the cost-benefit analysis, because their "income" is by coercion, this leads to malinvestment and over-consumption, debt that will not be liquidated and thus stick the tax payer with the bill. taxes will have to raise, even if it means the price of money drops.

Chris, how will nixing these loan programs take us back to the stone age?

(isn't injecting party politics into this discussion just a low brow way of trying to end it?)

(just noticed before this my post # was 6868. haha)

[A Horse With No Name]

I just think we need to invest in the future...away from partisan politics...

The whole problem with our country is that we have IMHO gone from building things and inventing things and doing things to importing things and letting others do the thinking for us.

[loki]

I just think we need to invest in the future...away from partisan politics...

The whole problem with our country is that we have IMHO gone from building things and inventing things and doing things to importing things and letting others do the thinking for us.

the first part,...then gov cannot be acting like it has more so over the last few years. gov is run by partisan politics and like you said, "and since when did the Idiotic Republicans fix anything or make anything better?" sounds like you are a partisan too.....

if you want to invest in the future, try to get a job with them, buy their stock, encourage the smartest you know of all ages to not look for hand outs from the gov and look for PEOPLE to invest in them and their ideas.

i think investing in the future has to promote ideas of justice, not for the 99%, not for the 1%, but for everyone, equally. how can that be accomplished by an entity that derives it's power and $ from the people it can coerce and while using that power and money to try to control where the present is going into the future? it's past record is pretty horrid, and more so in the last ~100 years, and only accelerating.

remember, gov does not equal society, and vise versa.

i think it's credited to ghandi.... "(you) be the change you want to see."

anymore discussion and i'm going straight to the core value(s) about this topic.

[Robert Hall]

I just think we need to invest in the future...away from partisan politics...

The whole problem with our country is that we have IMHO gone from building things and inventing things and doing things to importing things and letting others do the thinking for us.

the first part,...then gov cannot be acting like it has more so over the last few years. gov is run by partisan politics and like you said, "and since when did the Idiotic Republicans fix anything or make anything better?" sounds like you are a partisan too.....

Not really partisan, that sounds like just a statement of fact.

Edited November 8, 2011 by Cubical-aka-Moltar

[loki]

Not really partisan, that sounds like just a statement of fact.

HA! /sarcasm.

[Drew Dowdell]

Topic closed.