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Suddenly, '08 campaign spotlight finds Detroit 3
Suddenly, '08 campaign spotlight finds Detroit 3
BY JUSTIN HYDE • FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
WASHINGTON -- After years of complaints that Washington cared little about its woes, Detroit's auto industry has become a frequent backdrop for John McCain and Barack Obama to pitch their economic plans. Whether that attention will translate into help for automakers may be evident as soon as September.
As Republican presidential hopeful McCain visits the engineering headquarters of General Motors Corp. in Warren today, auto industry allies on Capitol Hill are pushing funding for tens of billions of dollars worth of low-cost loans for automakers to be included in a potential second economic stimulus bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she would bring the bill to the floor in weeks.
Those loans -- $25 billion of which were approved but not funded in last year's energy bill -- could be used for revamping old factories and engineering hybrids and other advanced vehicles. While Detroit automakers have disavowed any ideas of a federal bailout, the loan program could be the only aid for the cash-strapped industry Congress considers this year.
Alan Reuther, the UAW's chief lobbyist, said the industry's Democratic backers are hopeful that Congress will act before it adjourns for the election. If it does not act, automakers would have to wait until February before such a proposal would come back.
"This would be the way not only to help create jobs in the industry but also accelerate the introduction of these vehicles in response to the gas-price rise," Reuther said.
Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, has backed such programs in the past and voted for their funding last year. A spokesman for McCain said the Arizona senator opposed the loan program because his proposals -- a $300-million prize for developing advanced batteries, a $5,000 tax credit for buyers of plug-in hybrids and requirements for automakers to build more flex-fuel vehicles -- would accomplish the same goals.
"They're intended to encourage the same kind of advanced vehicles," said McCain spokesman Taylor Griffin.
Thanks to Michigan's position as a key state in the presidential election, both candidates have made a point of visiting auto plants and meeting top executives for their views on the industry's challenges. Each has focused frequently on topics where they broadly agree with the industry, such as increased government spending on battery research. Both have also heard repeatedly from workers facing the threat of job cuts.
GM spokesman Greg Martin said the company welcomed the attention from the candidates as a chance to "reaffirm this industry and this company's economic importance to the country."
"If candidates and policy makers can see that the companies are undertaking some very difficult, tough but necessary actions to change their business and compete ... there are things government can do to augment those efforts and reestablish the country's manufacturing," he said.
Before the meeting with GM employees, McCain will get a VIP overview of the upcoming Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle from GM Chairman Rick Wagoner, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz and other executives -- including a look at the production version that hasn't been publicly revealed.
U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, the Harrison Township Republican who will introduce McCain today, said McCain understands automakers while Obama "was out blistering the industry for months for not having the right products."
"I don't think Washington understands, or has conveniently forgotten, the proud heritage of this industry," Miller said. "It's an industry that's reeling, and yet it's not getting quite the attention, or quite frankly the compassion, it deserves."
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, called McCain's proposals insufficient for the challenges facing Detroit and said they would only deepen the decline of U.S. manufacturing under the Bush administration.
"If McCain were really in touch with Michigan and the auto industry, he'd be fighting" for the loan program, Levin said. "Sen. Obama is. We need a true partnership right now, not just some vagueness into the future."
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