Auto Industry Bailout, Bailouts | featured news

The U.S. government's short stint in the auto business is coming to an end. The Treasury Department said Wednesday that it will sell its remaining stake in General Motors by early 2014, writing the final chapter of a $50 billion bailout that saved the auto giant but stoked a heated national debate about the government's role in private industry.

When General Motors announced in 2008 that it would shut down its assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, local Representative Paul Ryan leaped into action.

Romney has been consistent on his position that a managed bankruptcy was the best course of action. But he keeps digging a bigger hole for himself when he claims that the path he recommended — which included no public assistance — would have been successful from the start. Both Presidents Bush and Obama rejected that advice, and there is little evidence the industry would have survived without the breathing room provided by public funds.

Chief executives of AIG, GM and Ally Financial, three companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers and which remain partly owned by the U.S. Treasury, won't receive overall pay increases this year.

The super PAC behind President Obama is on the air in Michigan today with an ad slamming Mitt Romney and his opposition to the auto industry ...

General Motors earned its largest profit ever in 2011, two years after it nearly collapsed. Strong sales in the U.S. and China helped the carmaker turn a profit of $7.6 billion, beating its old record of $6.7 billion in 1997 during the pickup and SUV boom.

The Treasury Department said Thursday it has exited its investment in Chrysler LLC after Italian automaker Fiat SpA purchased the U.S. government's remaining holdings in the auto company.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney defended himself Thursday against questions over why he opposed a federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler two years ago.

Barely two years since it filed for bankruptcy, Chrysler still has to prove it can deliver on its “second chance.” The carmaker seems to be heading in the right direction.

The Treasury Department said on Thursday it reached an agreement to sell its remaining 6 percent equity stake in Chrysler to Italy's Fiat in a deal that will net Washington $560 million.