Auto Car News Opinion: Romney doubles down on auto bailout opposition?

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trailing in the polls in Michigan forward of that state’s February 28 primary, and the former Mass. Governor thinks the way to close the gap is to bash the bailout of the auto industry in 2009 that saved General Motors and Chrysler from being broken up and liquidated in failure court.

Romney’s timing is tough, what with GM’s setting an all-time record profit for 2011.

Polls have suggested that despite the obvious gain from the bailout to Michigan, state residents have been divided around whether Uncle Sam should have stepped in to keep the automakers in tact.

My big beef with Romney is not that he opposes the bailout in principle (though he did support the bailout of Wall Street), but that he fictionalizes events of 2009 when GM and Chrysler went through bankruptcy. Romney asserts that the companies could have gone through a managed failure without the help of the federal government. Not true.

Perhaps a better tack for Romney would be to suggest that as long as GM is making such huge profits the company might pay back some of the loans granted it under President Bush. GM got billions before the failure that it is not required to pay back.

Read my entire column around Romney’s odd take on history at HuffingtonPost Detroit.