In between sessions and a meeting, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown called on his constituents to bail out the Big Three auto makers, saying he believes the auto industry can repay $25 billion in additional loans “within a few years.”
Brown, in a telephone press conference, said to reject the loan would be “catastrophic” to Ohio’s blue-collar workforce and an additional drain on the national economic system.
Ohio’s senior senator, George Voinovich, is also backing the bailout.
“I strongly believe this legislation should be voted on next week. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wait any longer,” Voinovich said.
Brown said executives from Detroit’s three major auto makers, who flew in private jets to ask for federal funding last month, will take a $1 a year salary. Ford Motor Co. executives presented a business plan to return to a pretax profit or break even by 2011 and will cancel all management employees’ 2009 bonuses and will not pay any merit increases for salaried employees next year.
Ford also promises to sell five corporate aircraft, Brown said.
The Big Three includes General Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler.
“(The automakers) have come forward with a plan and I believe they have met the test,” Brown said. “Based on reasonable assumptions, they can repay these loans.”
“We have two options here,” Brown said. “Provide bridge loans or allow the economy to drive off the bridge.”
The banking industry side-stepped regulations in its October bailout, not so with the Big Three, Brown said.
The problem, he said, could be in perception of the auto industry as a whole.
“People don’t think (the automakers) deserve a bailout because they have not kept up with foreign technology or energy efficient initiatives,” Brown said. “But this time really is different. In the last five years the auto industry has been through an incredible change.”
Brown said the focus should be on blue-collar workers and working class economics.
“This is a typical Wall Street bias,” he said. “We are looking at something that will effect hundreds of thousands of employees, people who work with their hands, people who take their showers at the end of the day instead of before work.”
Brown acknowledges this bailout, which Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson opposes strongly, will be a tough sell in the Senate.
Brown said to do nothing about the auto industry crisis causes “a cascade of bankruptcies, and not just in Detroit.”
Local News
Related Photos
-
Susan Walsh
Discussion
Ohio’s senators agree to proposal
- Local News
-
-
Murder suspect kills self at mother’s grave
Madison Township police officers found the body of a murder suspect in the Alexander Harper Cemetery on Thursday afternoon, ending a day-long, multi-county manhunt.
-
Presses stopped: Updated with video
It was June 23, 1969.
-
Airport takes off with a new name
A new name for the Ashtabula County Airport is winding its way through the regulatory channels.
-
Property owners must pay for meth labs in Jefferson
An ordinance requiring landowners to pay for the clean-up costs of clandestine drug labs was unanimously adopted by Village Council.
-
Elections board gets help with time-consuming tasks
A Xenia company specializing in election services will take on some time-consuming tasks that should help contain the Ashtabula County Board of Elections’ labor costs, members said.
-
Commissioners pay to get the business
Commissioners on Tuesday approved a $15,000 contract with Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County to provide business service representation on behalf of the county’s One-Stop job training center.
-
Grand Valley sixth grader wins Ashtabula County Spelling Bee
James Elliott, a sixth grader at Grand Valley Middle School, clinched his win of the 29th annual Ashtabula County Area V Spelling Bee by successfully spelling the words “physique” and “daffodil.”
-
Sports, academics to come together
SPIRE Institute will expand its educational base and accept international students into its sports performance programs through a partnership with the Andrews Osborne Academy, Ted Meekma, SPIRE management team member, announced Wednesday.
-
Conneaut Chamber lauds top citizen, ‘Champions’
Nicholas Iarocci, Conneaut’s 2011 Citizen of the Year, needed plenty of gulps of water to complete his acceptance speech Tuesday night.
-
Felony charge filed in robbery
An Ashtabula woman who police said grabbed a woman’s purse inside a Conneaut supermarket late Monday afternoon faces a felony charge in Conneaut Municipal Court, according to reports.
- More Local News Headlines
-
