That's not all there is to it. If one listens to interviews long enough the truth comes out. Finally the conversation gets around to "the auto companies should re-negotiate the contracts with the unions". While it is true that employees' entitlements such as pensions and health care are extremely expensive, you notice that they don't want to address the health care issue. The reason is that then they would have to admit that the reason the companies suffer under these cost and are at an disadvantage in this area globally, is that other countries have other ways to pay for health care.
So rather than address the root of the problem which is the way the entitlements are financed, these Republicans would rather use this crisis as an excuse to bust the unions. In true disaster capitalism style, they would rather use the crisis to impose their goal of eliminating unions rather than find a solution that helps the American people.
Like my die hard Republican friend at work they have a distorted view of the world in which labor unions are the source of all problems. This view is akin to religious dogma in much the same way that "no new taxes" (for the rich) is part of their dogma. In fact, my Republican friend can blame the most outrageous things on labor unions. I wouldn't be surprised to hear him blame bad weather and indigestion on labor unions (well, maybe they do give him indigestion).
We are fortunate these rigid free market dogmatists will soon be gone (at least a lot of them will). Maybe then we can get the root of some of these problems.
I am reminded of the way polluting industries have never included the environmental cost of their polluting ways in their allocated costs of production. They have heedlessly exploited the planet's wealth (which could in one sense be said to belong to all residents of the country, like Alaska's oil production provides benefits directly to Alaskans) for their private profit, but balk when presented with a bill for the clean-up of the resulting toxic waste. They want to skim the cream off the top, rewarding themselves for their entrepreneurship and their efforts in using their savings and capital to create the jobs and the production, but do not want to pay their fair share of the social costs.
Same thing with the employment of labor, which the basic free market CEO truly believes has no value, and which he regards as simply another commodity to be bargained for at the lowest possible price. Market forces forbid his being charged for social costs--- those are not in the business plan, and are not his responsibility. He insists that including such social costs destroys his ability to make a profit.
But they filed for bankruptcy, got to reorganize and invalidate their labor contracts. So yes, a lot of the oppostion to any bailout is to force the automakers into bankruptcy court with the hopes of busting their unions.
Now, I firmly believe that companies failing because of bad leadership or lack of vision should fail. The other caveat of this issue is that the downturn in the economy was not predicted and therefore dropped these companies below the mark they thought they'd be at right now. Taking both of this into consideration, I suggest we bail out the auto industry but we only do it with significant authority over the businesses and with mandatory removal of some top executives for those companies.
Car companies failing today just smacks of lack of vision to me. When I see a car commercial for a car that gets 30mpg I laugh because I know we can do more like 90-120mpg. Or hell, give up your profits in the manufactured parts industry and produce electric cars. That'd be like selling every American a new car in the next 5-10 years, which is not bad at all. Cars and trucks as mainstay transportation is coming to an end. We have the option now to extend the life of these long enough to ensure that our national infrastructure is safe. We shouldn't miss out on this.
The US therefore has an interest in seeing a domestic auto industry of some sort survive. But it does not matter on that front which of the Big Three survives.
It might help the union's cause if they demonstrate (1) how they have also accepted cutbacks in these tough times (and how execs have not) and (2) how the '$40/hour wrench turner' story is akin to the 'Cadillac-driving welfare queen' story (i.e. true a few times but hardly representative of the whole story.)