GM to File for Bankruptcy; What Happened to the Bailout Money?

  We loaned GM $50 billion so that they would survive and stay solvent yet on Monday the company is going to file for bankruptcy. What happened to the $50 billion that was supposed to bail them out and make them viable? Is there no accountability? Does anybody know where this money went? Was this money just wasted?

 It has become apparent to me that the administration’s goal in giving GM our money was so that the government could control them, not save them. So while in the eyes of the taxpayers it would seem that the money loaned to GM was wasted, to the president it was money well spent. The money accomplished its goal.

GM CEO

 The taxpayers have handed control of a private industry over to the government. The money was given to GM so that the government had an excuse to regulate them, the plan all along was probably to let them file for bankruptcy eventually but the government wanted to seize control first and then ease them into bankruptcy. The government will emerge with about a 75% ownership stake. Once the government has control of something, they don’t give it back.

  GM should have had to do from the start what every struggling company is forced to do– file for bankruptcy on their own, its called the free market– but we were told that disaster lurked if this were to happen and that the government needed to give them a bailout. The government gave them billions of our money and they still have to file for bankruptcy, this could have been done months ago at no expense to the taxpayer and with no government interference.

  It seems like $50 billion wasted to me, a major failure for this president’s economic recovery effort. The bailouts are failing and we don’t even know where our money went.