Romney GM proposal would cost taxpayers $16bn

You know who else was
in favor of the GM bailout?

In the Romney family budget, $16bn is a rounding error, for the rest of America, including the federal budget, that's a huge amount of money.  What can Romney possibly be thinking? From Jia Lynn Yang at the Washington Post:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the government should shed its stake in General Motors as soon as possible, even though selling the shares now would lock in billions of dollars in taxpayer losses.

If the government were to follow Romney’s prescription, it would mean at least $16 billion in losses. The Treasury Department and some auto analysts argue that GM’s shares are priced too low now and that waiting longer could help recoup more taxpayer money.

It's incredibly flippant of Romney to suggest that $16bn lost in taxpayer money is no big deal. But that's exactly what he's implicitly suggesting by endorsing the notion that we just up and sell our stake in GM, when many feel we can avoid those losses by simply waiting a bit longer.

But Mitt is afraid that if the US government continues to own 32% of GM, Boris and Natasha win.

Not to mention, as the Washington Post smartly points out, the auto bailout - which has been wildly successful - is a sore point for the Romney campaign. Romney was a lead voice opposing the bailout, while he now touts its success. You'd think Romney would want to avoid talking about the bailout so as not to remind voters that he doesn't really believe in anything.

Romney has run into some political trouble for his stance on the auto bailout. In November 2008, he wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times with the headline “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” in which he argued that a bailout of the auto industry would virtually guarantee its demise.

Now, Obama has been touting the success of the auto bailouts in ads.