WWPRD? - What Would President Romney Do?

Had it been up to Mitt Romney, we would no longer have an American auto industry. Here's what he wrote in his New York Times op-ed back in November of 2008, two months before President Obama took office:

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed...

...A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs...

...In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Seal their fate with a "bailout check." "...it's demise will be virtually guaranteed." The Bain way, apparently. Maybe the only way Romney knows. Take over a company, bankrupt it and reap the profits.

So here we are, a little over three years later, and GM is back on top as the world's top auto manufacturer. So of course, you'd expect Mitt would think that perhaps even if the government didn't go about it the right way in his opinion, at least a million plus jobs were saved and Detroit is alive again. ...Nope. He doubled down.

The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama's management of the American economy are evident in what he did.

Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, Obama rewarded them.

Blame the workers. Nice going, Mitt. Never mind that the UAW took significant cuts, in pay, benefits and pension to keep their jobs and keep the auto industry alive in this country.

Now, the US Treasury still owns about one-third of GM's stock and is holding off on selling it until it can at the very least, minimize losses. But what would Mitt Romney do?

The Obama administration needs to act now to divest itself of its ownership position in GM.

The shares need to be sold in a responsible fashion and the proceeds turned over to the nation's taxpayers.

Yes, if Mitt Romney were President, he would sell the shares of GM... at a massive loss.

Taxpayers have recovered roughly half of the government’s $49.5 billion investment in GM through stock sales and loan repayments.

To break even on the GM bailout, the Treasury Department would have to sell its remaining one-third stake in the company for roughly $53 a share. GM stock is trading at about half that amount, so the government would lose about $14 billion on the deal if those shares were sold today.

Something tells me that unless Ronmey is dealing in vulture capitalism, he really has no idea what he's doing.