Federal Government will Loose Billions from General Motors and Chrysler.

U.S. 'Unlikely' to Recoup Auto Outlay, Panel Finds - washingtonpost.com

The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue.

The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is "highly unlikely" to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company's stock to reach unprecedented heights.
"Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount," according to the report, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.

Great car of the past. Will future cars be loved this way?

We were told by the Treasury Department, just four months ago, that the United States would recover most of its planned $50 billion investment in General Motors within 5 years. And if the government-monitored corporate reorganization fails and GM sputters again, the government investment in the company will be lost.
Now it's starting to look like the US government is going to loose $50 billion dollars or are we loosing $50 billion dollars. How did President Obama believe that we would get our money back from the car companies?
During the boom years, the annualized figure for car sales in the United States hovered around 16 million. Recently, it has fallen to between 9 million and 10 million on an annualized basis. To get our money back President is betting that the US auto market will rebound to 16 million by 2012. A 40 percent increase in just 3 years in this economy? Is President Obama willing to bet the house?
For the United States to fully recover its investment, the value of General Motors stock will have to reach levels it has never before attained. "It's very unlikely" that the government will recover its money, said
David Whiston, auto equities analyst at Morningstar. "GM will be a smaller company after the bankruptcy and there are going to be more foreign automakers entering the market that will make GM's efforts more
difficult."

As the auto rescue has unfolded, the question of whether the government will be repaid has taken on increasingly political overtones, as partisans debate whether the Bush administration or the Obama
administration has handled the industry better. We shall see.
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05.07.09 Sen. Corker Discusses News that Chrysler Won't Repay $7 Billion Taxpayer Loan

President Obama and Democrats hope a Split-the-Vote will force Health Care Reform

New Rx for Health Plan: Split Bill - WSJ.com

The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes.

The idea is the latest effort by Democrats to escape the morass caused by delays in Congress, as well as voter discontent crystallized in angry town-hall meetings. Polls suggest the public is losing support for the overhaul plans, giving Republicans less incentive to go along.

Democrats hope a split-the-bill plan would speed up a vote and help President Barack Obama meet his goal of getting a final measure by year's end.

Angry Protester.

Democratic plan would be put to a separate vote in the Senate, including the requirement that Americans have health insurance. But in Massachusetts the program is a failure it has not achieved universal healthcare, although the reform has been a boon to the private insurance industry. The state has more than 200,000 without coverage, and the count can only go up with rising unemployment.

The program is not affordable for many individuals and families. For middle-income people not qualifying for state-subsidized health insurance, costs are too high for even skimpy coverage. For an
individual earning $31,213, the cheapest plan can cost $9,872 in premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Low-income residents, previously eligible for free care, have insurance policies requiring unaffordable
copayments for office visits and medications.

On April 4th 2006 The Massachusetts legislature approved a bill that would require all residents to purchase health insurance or face legal penalties, which would make this the first state to tackle the problem
of incomplete medical coverage by treating patients the same way it does cars.

The costs of the reform for the state have been formidable. Spending for the Commonwealth Care subsidized program has doubled, from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion for 2009, which is not sustainable.

We must let Congress know we want improved access to affordable healthcare for all, not more expensive private health insurance we can't afford to use when we are sick. Massachusetts healthcare reform
fails on all five Institute of Medicine criteria. Congress should not make it a model for the nation.

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Newt Gingrich Defends Sarah Palin's "Death Panel" Comments

GM Chevrolet Volt Electric Car get 300 Miles a day for $40,000.

GM says new Volt could get 230 mpg in city driving

General Motors said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt electric car could get 230 mpg in city driving, making it the first American vehicle to achieve triple-digit fuel economy if that figure is confirmed by federal regulators.
But when the four-door family sedan hits showrooms late next year, its efficiency will come with a steep sticker price: $40,000.
Still, the Volt's fuel efficiency would be four times more than the popular Toyota Prius hybrid, the most efficient car now sold in the U.S.


Most automakers are working on similar designs, but GM would offer the first mainstream plug-in with the Volt, which seats four and was introduced at the 2007 Detroit auto show.

Chevrolet Volt electric car.

The Volt is powered by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 40-mile range. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity for a total range of 300 miles. The
battery pack can be recharged from a standard home outlet.

Toyota's Prius—which starts at about $22,000—gets 51 mpg in the city and 48 mpg on the highway and goes further than 300 miles. Hybrids use a small internal combustion engine combined with a high-powered battery to boost fuel efficiency.

What is the life of these high powered batteries?
The bottom line is that no one really knows how long they last. Manufacturers like Toyota and Honda have warranties that last for 8 years and between 80,000 and 100,000 miles. Replacement battery packs for hybrid cars generally cost about $3,000.

The batteries in hybrid cars are responsible for the better fuel economy that's become central to the technology. They power the electric motor, which typically propels a hybrid car at lower speeds. This puts less pressure on the gasoline engine and stretches out the amount of fuel a vehicle burns in between trips to the gas station.

But the chemical material that makes up all car batteries, whether it's a conventional car or a hybrid, is typically toxic. Currently, there are far fewer hybrid cars on the road than conventional cars; however,
concerns have been raised that if the number of hybrid cars increase, landfills will soon overflow with toxic batteries that are full of corrosive and carcinogenic materials.

Japanese electronics maker Hitachi Ltd. said Thursday it will supply lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles to General Motors Corp. in 2010 and sharply raise production capacity to meet surging demand for gas-electric cars.
Hitachi currently makes 40,000 lithium-ion batteries per month and will lift the capacity to three million units per month that's 36 million a year.

PHEVs and electric cars need more robust lithium batteries than conventional hybrids, because the batteries undergo a more severe duty cycle, charged to the brim then nearly drained.

Even as it pushes ahead on the electric Smart cars, Mercedes says it isn't sure rechargeable batteries cut pollution or energy use. "You have to produce the energy" for recharging, and that might come from inefficient, higher-polluting sources.

So are you going to buy a GM Chevrolet Volt electric car  for $40,000 that only will go 300 miles a day, which you might have to buy a $3000 replacement battery and not save the environment?

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Hybrid vehicle battery challenges- Jon Lauckner, GM
WE NEED GOVERNMENT MONEY.

President Obama Grew Deficit by $181 billion in July.

TheHill.com - Deficit grew by $181 billion in July

Spending through July of 2009 has increased by $530 billion, which is 21 percent over the same period in 2008. The bailout money for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae accounted for almost half of the spending increase. Unemployment benefits have more than doubled, Medicaid spending has grown by a quarter and Medicare spending has increased by 11 percent.

Tax revenue for the first three quarters of 2009 has fallen by approximately $350 billion, or 17 percent compared to the same period last year, due mostly to the effects of the recession on payroll, income and corporate taxes. A third of the decline is due to tax breaks in the stimulus, including the middle-class tax cut that President Obama campaigned on during last year's election.

The independent budget scorekeeper has projected the deficit to reach $1.8 trillion by the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. The deficit in 2008 reached $455 billion, which was a record at the time.

President Obama "Spendaholic".


The latest deficit projections come as Democrats in Congress and the White House are pushing for healthcare reform criticized by Republicans as too costly. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stressed during a town-hall meeting in Colorado this week that the healthcare bill won't add to the
deficit or restrict benefits and instead will increase access to care.

I guess Nancy Pelosi is smarter than the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Which said the bill expected to cost roughly $1 trillion over the next decade. Nancy said the bill won't add to the
deficit.

As if healthcare spending weren't already a train wreck in the making, it's projected to nearly double by 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced today. That means it'll reach a whopping $4.3 trillion and account for 19.5 percent of our gross domestic product, up from 16.3 percent
now.

The Obama campaign maintain that they've figured out how to pay for their proposals without worsening the deficit. The problem is that given the difficulties we already face—that $4.3 trillion—their mechanisms to finance these programs just aren't very convincing. That's like saying you're going to pay for a weight-loss program with the money you'll save on groceries once you're slim.

The final presidential debate: Deficit spending, health care, and more

SCHIEFFER: We found out yesterday that this year's deficit will reach an astounding record high $455 billion. Some experts say it could go to $1 trillion next year.
OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think it's important for the American public to understand that the $750 billion rescue package, if it's structured properly, and, as president, I will make sure it's structured properly, means that ultimately taxpayers get their money back, and that's important to understand. But there is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some
adjustments. Now, what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut. I haven't made a promise about...
SCHIEFFER: But you're going to have to cut some of these programs, certainly.
OBAMA: Absolutely. So let me get to that. What I want to emphasize, though, is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional
cut so that it matches. And some of the cuts, just to give you an example, we spend $15 billion a year on subsidies to insurance companies. It doesn't -- under the Medicare plan -- it doesn't help
seniors get any better. It's not improving our health care system. It's just a giveaway. We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don't work. And I want to go through the federal budget line by line, page by page, programs that don't work, we should cut. Programs that we need, we should make them work better.
But what is absolutely true is that, once we get through this economic crisis and some of the specific proposals to get us out of this slump, that we're not going to be able to go back to our profligate ways. And we're going to have to embrace a culture and an ethic of responsibility, all of us, corporations, the federal government, and individuals out there who may be living beyond their means.
President Obama speaking out of both side of his mouth.

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Bush Has Doubled National Debt with Deficits