GM Town 'On Edge Until Bush Gives Us the Money'

LORDSTOWN, Ohio -- Elsewhere in the country, the question of whether the government should bail out U.S. automakers unfolds as a debate over political principles of free-market ideas and corporate responsibility.

But here in the Mahoning Valley, people wonder: If General Motors goes down how will we get by?

The GM plant in Lordstown is one of the few pillars propping up the sagging Rust Belt economy in the small towns and cities in this area of northeastern Ohio. In Lordstown, the plant accounts for more than 70 percent of the tax base. It employs 4,250, paying people some of the best wages around, and sustains an additional 10,000 or so jobs in the companies that supply the GM plant. And as in other places where an auto plant is an economic engine, it's not just auto workers who are worried, but restaurateurs, bar owners, grocers and nearly every merchant in town.

"Oh, my God, people are so scared," said Michael Rulli, whose family has had grocery stores in the area since 1917. "And they'll be on edge until Bush gives us the money."

"Not having GM here would be catastrophic," said Herb Washington, a former star base-stealer in Major League Baseball, who owns 21 McDonalds in the area. "You take that out of here, and what do we have to survive?"

The local talk-radio institution Ron Verb of WKBN has dedicated the past three weeks to the fate of the bailout, first with Congress and now with the Bush administration, and "all seven lines are lit up all the time," he said. Strangers stop GM workers in the grocery aisle to ask what they've heard. And at kitchen tables at night, couples who have lived in the area all their lives talk about whether to at last give up on the Mahoning Valley and pick up and go.

"We talk about leaving," said Bruce Thomas, 40, who puts in windshields at the Lordstown plant, "but everything I ever had came from GM."

His wife works at the plant. So did his dad and her dad. So did two of her brothers. Her oldest brother worked at a supplier.

"Lots of people are talking about going to South Carolina -- there's a BMW plant there," said his wife, Jennifer, who raises four children with him. "But I'm afraid that if we go there, there'll be the same crowd of auto workers looking for the same job."

The other issue: Who would buy the homes of retreating employees if the plant goes down?

"My wife talks about picking up and moving," said Russ Pinkard, 41, a team leader in the trim department. "But no one can sell a house as it is. It will only get worse if the plant closes -- a lot worse."

This area, northwest of Youngstown, suffered a tremendous economic blow when the steel mills began to close during the '70s, the low point being what residents refer to as Black Monday, Sept. 19, 1977, when Youngstown Sheet and Tube let go of thousands of employees.