Not a Bailout, but $25 Billion for Oil Independence

This might seem a bad time to ask Uncle Sam for money. The government is feeling a tad tapped-out after launching multibillion-dollar rescues of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and drafting plans to spend $85 billion to save global insurer American International Group from default.

The government could be forgiven for grumpily dismissing any other requests for help, especially from enterprises that are supposed to rise or fall on their merits in our putative free-enterprise system.

Enough is enough!

Or is it?

There is the outstanding matter of $25 billion, money approved in last year's energy bill but not yet funded. It's the sum of proposed, low-interest direct loans to domestic automobile manufacturers -- "domestic" in this case applying to any car company that has been manufacturing automobiles in the United States for 20 years.

That would include General Motors, Ford, Chrysler . . . and Honda.

Critics view the proposed auto industry loan package as another federal bailout of corporations that got themselves into trouble and that now are trying to escape the consequences of their mismanagement at taxpayers' expense.

But that view understandably is rejected by domestic automobile industry executives.

"It's neither a bailout nor a handout," said Elizabeth A. Lowery, GM's vice president for energy and environment. "It's a loan, money that will be paid back. It's not going to cost the taxpayers anything."

That's debatable.

There is little that is certain in the global automobile industry, other than that it is changing rapidly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. How companies respond to those changes will determine their failure or success . . . and the consequences or benefits attached to either outcome.

There is some justifiable concern, especially in this troubled economy, that at least one of the domestic car companies might go under and, in doing so, sock American taxpayers with another multibillion-dollar bill. The Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimates that such a failure could cost $7.5 billion in taxpayer losses.