http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/sep/06/did-obama-save-us-automobile-industry/
whether some think you can never know because it is now thriving , i offer that as a difinitive answer "YES"
is the auto industry better off then they were 4 years ago? you know the answer to that.Even the most casual viewer of the Democratic convention would get the point: President Barack Obama saved the American auto industry.Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick called him the president "who saved the American auto industry from extinction." The former CEO of the super-sized used car dealership CarMax, Austin Ligon, said the president’s decisive action to restructure General Motors and Chrysler "helped prevent a domino effect that would have taken down everything in the auto industry, from the factories that manufactured auto parts to the dealers who sold the cars." And Michelle Obama talked about how her husband "fought to get the auto industry back on its feet."The Economist, one of the bastions of free-market thinking,came around to that view. Originally, it favored no government intervention. In April 2010, it offered an apology to President Obama."Given the panic that gripped private purse-strings," the magazine wrote in an editorial. "It is more likely that GM would have been liquidated, sending a cascade of destruction through the supply chain on which its rivals, too, depended."Even Sherk at the Heritage Foundation gives Obama credit for forcing the carmakers to go through bankruptcy and the necessary restructuring that followed. The Economist concludes "by and large Mr Obama has not used his stakes in GM and Chrysler for political ends. On the contrary, his goal has been to restore both firms to health and then get out as quickly as possible."As we said in the beginning, it is impossible to know if the American auto industry would have fared better without government money, without government ownership, and without strong government intervention. Most likely, that debate would be more robust if the industry were not doing well.But for the moment, it is. The massive loss of jobs and the disruption to the network of auto parts suppliers did not happen. The shock that might have hit all car makers and the overall economy is not staring lawmakers in the face. Given the tangible reality of today, the view among most analysts is that President Bush kept the carmakers afloat long enough for President Obama to put them on solid footing moving forward. If that matches the definition of a rescue, then both presidents saved the auto industry.
