As grim as the economic news is, as former skeptic Kevin Drum notes it would be even worse had the Obama administration not saved the domestic auto industry. Automobile sales and parts are one of the few robust areas of the American economy, and Drum estimates that the bailout saved roughly a million jobs. While much of the criticism of the Obama administration not being aggressive enough in dealing with the Great Recession has been warranted, this is indeed a success story that doesn't receive nearly enough attention.
And as Jon Cohn recently noted, it's crucial to emphasize that the managed bankruptcy wouldn't have worked without a substantial infusion of funds. Should Romney be the Republican nominee, he will probably assert that he actually agreed with the bailout because he supported a bankruptcy process. But supporting bankruptcy without a bailout almost certainly would have resulted in liquidation and upwards of a million lost jobs, and let's hope Obama won't be shy about pointing this out. And should Perry be the nominee, perhaps someone should ask him if he considers the bailout unconstitutional, like most of what the federal government does.
