Import bias? Sec. Geithner owns 2008 Acura TSX, like this one.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner drives a 2008 Acura TSX. Lawrence Summers, the Director of the White House National Economic Council, drives a 1995 Mazda Protégé.
Does that matter? It might, suggests a story in today’s Detroit News. The report reveals that among the eight members named last Friday to the new Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry – along with their 10 senior policy aides – only two own cars made by the Big Three. As reporter David Shepardson notes, that number jumps to three if you include the Treasury Department’s special advisor to the task force.
Does that suggest that these folks already have an import bias? Detroit’s Big Three better hope not, especially General Motors and Chrysler, who have already received billions of dollars in federal loans and are asking for billions more in aid they say they critically need if they’re to survive the current economic downturn.
Task Force members own imports; Obama drives domestics, like this, his old Chrysler 300C.
On February 17th, GM and Chrysler submitted detailed “viability plans,” outlining their individual strategies both for survival and for paying back the American taxpayers. Additional paperwork must be submitted to Washington by March 31st. At that point, the Task Force will have to make its recommendation to President Barack Obama, who, in turn, will either authorize the additional aid or reject the bailout bids. The latter approach would all but certainly force the makers into Chapter 11, and many observers fear that the troubled companies might not emerge from bankruptcy.
Of the various Task Force members and staff, Gene Sperling, counsel to Geithner, owns a 2003 Lincoln L. Rick Wade, a senior advisor at the Commerce Dept., owns a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier. Edward Montgomery, a Labor Dept. advisor, doesn’t own a car, but does have a 1991 Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
The rest of the Task Force team either own imports – including a Prius, a Volvo C30 and a Subaru Legacy Outback — or don’t own any vehicles at all, such as Energy Secretary Stephen Chu. Like other cabinet members, he gets around in a guarded government limousine.
Geithner does have a familial tie to Detroit, however. His maternal grandfather, Charles Moore, was a Ford Motor Co. vice president, from 1952 to 1963.
Meanwhile, the new president has been more favorable to domestics. Before winning the election, last November, Obama parked a Ford Escape Hybrid at his Hyde Park, Chicago, home. He had traded in a Chrysler 300C for the more fuel-efficient SUV.