Brown defends auto bailout
Columbus Dispatch – Sen. Sherrod Brown, who will accompany President Barack Obama Friday for an event at Chrysler’s auto plant in North Toledo, said today that Ohio’s recession would have deteriorated into a statewide depression in 2008 if the administration and Congress had failed to bail out General Motors and Chrysler.
Obama made a “tough and frankly unpopular decision” that proved to be correct, not only rescuing two of Detroit’s three automakers, but saving thousands of jobs in Ohio and across the country, Brown said.
Since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009, more than 115,000 auto jobs have been added nationwide, including 8,000 in Ohio, according to Brian Deese, deputy director of the National Economic Council, who joined Brown on a conference call with reporters.
“Our efforts were aimed at saving far more than two of the Big 3,” Brown said, noting that thousands of jobs in Ohio plants that supply parts to Chrysler and GM also were preserved and created. Today, he said, nearly 5,000 are employed at Lordstown making the Chevrolet Cruise, with parts comeing from factories in Defiance, Akron, Cleveland, Warren, Findlay, Springboro and elsewhere.
