"Boehner’s office touting Ford is consistent with Republican Party talking points, but it overlooks the most relevant possible detail: Ford supported the Obama administration’s policy, and even though the company wasn’t directly part of the rescue, Ford has said many times the “bailout” was vital to Ford’s success.
Late last year, Ford CEO Alan Mullaly explained, “The government’s intervention was absolutely key to helping create a chance for GM and Chrysler going forward. That’s why I testified on behalf of GM and Chrysler, as you know. The reason we did was that we believed — like two presidents [Bush and Obama] — that if GM and Chrysler would have gone into freefall bankruptcy, they would have taken the supply base down and taken the industry down plus maybe turned the U.S. recession into a depression.”
This isn’t complicated. Ford didn’t get federal funds, but the company, like its American rivals, was struggling badly. If GM and Chrysler had collapsed, there’s absolutely no doubt that Ford wouldn’t have had the suppliers it needed to survive. Ford’s executives have already acknowledged this; it’s not exactly a contentious point.
I don’t really expect Boehner’s office to pat the president on the bank for a job well done, but the public should realize that if we had followed the Speaker’s preferred course last year, this industry and American manufacturing in general would have been devastated — to the point from which there is no recovery." |
