House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is planning to use a lame duck session to look at funneling more cash to beleaguered US auto manufacturers. Her counterpart in the Senate, Harry Reid (D-NV) is also on board. It remains to be seen if Senate Republicans will go along. Pelosi is reportedly thinking a fraction of the $700B Congress has been willing to spend on the overall bailout. It would come on the heels of a $25B loan that went to auto companies in September.
RBR/TVBR observation: We think it’s important to keep these companies solvent – and it would really be nice if they could resume their traditional level of advertising, which has been sorely missed in the broadcasting business. However, the real solution is to get cash and confidence to consumers – until people start actually buying cars, this problem isn’t going away.
