Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), in a letter to UAW officials last Friday, endorsed a plan to push through $4 billion in aid to prop up the Detroit Three. The package of tax credits and loan guarantees is a proposed part of a second (and real) economic stimulus package working its way through congress for a September vote. Those billions would then be used to secure up to $25 billion in loans, which now starts to look like some real big-boy money.Included in the bill, at the behest of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, is an additional $250 million for advanced battery funding, which seems to be the sexy thing to fund these days. On the opposite side of the presidential horse-race fence, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is backing large tax credits for consumers purchasing economical cars and an X-Prize-like $300-million contest for much-improved batteries. We just want this long national nightmare of endless election "news" to be over. One hundred and one days left.
