The Treasury exits GM more than four years after the maker's 2009 bankruptcy.

Call it “Government Motors” no more.  More than four years after it emerged from bankruptcy with the help of a $49.5 billion federal bailout that left American taxpayers holding the majority of the company the U.S. Treasury has sold off its final holdings in General Motors.

Wall Street traders have been reacting strongly to news that the White House was set to get out of the auto business, GM shares setting surging during Monday trading after last week topping the $40 mark since the maker’s November 2011 IPO.  Among other things, the maker will now be in a position to pay dividends on its common stock and to raise the pay of senior managers without first getting approval from the administration’s pay czar – limits enacted as part of the terms of GM’s bailout.

“The U.S. Treasury’s ownership exit closes just one chapter in GM’s ongoing turnaround story,” said GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson.  “We will always be grateful for the second chance extended to us and we are doing our best to make the most of it. Today is not dramatically different from the hundreds of preceding days during which we have worked to make GM a company our country can be proud of again.

(Click Here for more on the new report about the automotive bailout.)

Perhaps one of the biggest questions is how the public will react to the news, GM being a frequent target of critics, particularly among conservatives who attacked the idea of using taxpayer money to keep failing automakers – also including cross-town rival Chrysler – alive.  GM was saddled with the derisive nickname, “Government Motors,” and while there are no hard numbers available, even company officials acknowledge the debate cost some sales.

While he said the threat of boycotts has largely faded, Mark Reuss, president of GM’s core North Amercan operations, said he felt “really good” to have the government sell off its final stake in the Detroit maker.  Reuss defended the bailout, contending that, “There are 10s of 1,000s of people who can now put food on the table,” as a result. “How can you put a price on that?”

(GM stock closes at all-time high, momentum continues. Click Here for more.)

In fact, a new survey said the bailouts – which began under former President George W. Bush and continued with the Obama Administration – saved at least 1.2 million U.S. jobs in 2009.

“Any complete cost-benefit assessment of the federal assistance to GM in its restructuring must consider the total net returns to the public investment,” wrote authors Sean McAlinden and Debra Maranger Menk.

according to the report, titled “The Effect on the U.S. Economy of the Successful Restructuring of General Motors,” released today by the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, or CAR, the bailout preserved $39.4 billion in personal and social insurance tax collections in 2009 and 2010.

“If the U.S. government had refused to assist” GM and Chrysler, the report stated, with the nation facing “a financial crisis of unprecedented proportions, then the whole U.S. economy was operating without a safety net, with the exception of course, of the banking system.”

The recent run-up in GM stock has been a boon for taxpayers, though most of the sell-off occurred too early to recoup all of the Treasury’s investment in General Motors.  The most recent government analysis estimated a loss of around $9.7 billion on the GM portion of the bailout.  That will likely be less now – and perhaps $10 billion less than what the deficit might have been in mid-2012 when the automotive bailout became a centerpiece of the most recent presidential campaign.

The GOP candidate, former Michigan resident Mitt Romney, came out squarely against the rescue effort, a position that appeared to aid him in some so-called “red” states, but which ultimately was seen as leading to his loss in the key election state of Ohio, with its strong automotive base.

Hoping to diffuse a potentially no-win situation, GM management largely stayed out of the debate, though being at the center of controversy clearly rankled top executives.  Chairman and CEO Akerson also was frustrated by not only having to accept a total pay package of substantially less than key rivals – such as Ford CEO Alan Mulally – but also having less cash to dangle in front of talented managers GM found it hard to hire.

That was just one of the problems have having to report to “the people in Washington (who had) such a poor understanding of manufacturing, in general, and the auto industry in particular,” said veteran automotive analyst David Cole, now the chairman-emeritus of CAR.

But Cole said the government did do the right thing when it bailed out GM and Chrysler because their collapse “could have sent the economy into a depression.”

(GM aims to turn frustrated owners into loyal buyers through “customer engagement.” Click Hereto find out more.)

Among the first steps GM may take is creating a new dividend for common stock holders. And few would be surprised to see a sharp rise in pay and bonuses for managers. That could be critical in the next two years or so when Chairman and CEO Akerson, now 65, is expected to relinquish at least one of his titles.

The end of U.S. government ownership could also give GM the opportunity to replace some of its once significant fleet of private aircraft. During the lead-up to the 2011 IPO, Akerson and other senior managers had to ask for permission to charter private planes making it possible for them to call on potential investors around the world.

The Canadian government still holds $4.2 billion in preferred stock that GM would like to buy back, and the automaker might now lay plans to purchase another $5.4 billion held by the United Auto Workers Union’s retiree health care trust, or VEBA.

The GM of today is a very different entity from the one that went to Washington in late 2008 begging for government assistance. The maker has closed scores of facilities, including a dozen major U.S. plants.  It has dropped four of its brands – Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Hummer – and its workforce now stands at 85,500, down from 92,000 just before the bankruptcy. But the workforce has been rising for the last several years as the American automotive market recovers.

The government exited its bailout of Chrysler in 2011, losing $1.3 billion of the $12.5 billion invested in the maker, which is now controlled by Italy’s Fiat SpA.

The Treasury still holds a 64% stake in Ally Financial, the one-time GMAC, and the government hopes to exit that $17.2 billion bailout by sometime next year.