A new book by White House auto czar Steven Rattner reveals that the White House was hands-on in day-to-day GM decision-making even as President Obama fibbed to the public that \u201cour goal is to . . . take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Washington meddling ran the gamut from personnel decisions to financing options to a veto of GM\u2019s proposal to abandon its Detroit headquarters, Rattner discloses in Overhaul: An Insider\u2019s Account of the Obama Administration\u2019s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry.<\/p>\n
GM proposed moving out if its Detroit\u2019s Renaissance Center HQ to its sprawling suburban tech center, arguing that the move would save money and would symbolize a commitment by top brass to be more involved in the company.<\/p>\n
But the \u201chands-off\u201d White House snuffed the idea, opting to protect Detroit \u2014 a key political constituency of the Democratic Party. \u201cAre you out of your mind?\u201d Rattner quoted Brian Deese, who has been heavily involved in auto policy, as saying. \u201cThink what it would do to Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Detroit News has the details:<\/p>\n
The White House even commissioned an outside analysis of the impact a move would have on Detroit property values, Rattner wrote. The answer: an estimated \u201cdouble-digit hit on already deflated real estate prices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaving the RenCen \u201cmade a lot of strategic sense,\u201d Rattner wrote. But Michigan native Gene Sperling, a U.S. Treasury Department official, was one of many who fought the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s over for Detroit if you do this,\u201d Sperling yelled in a meeting, Rattner recalled. \u201cDon\u2019t do this to (Detroit Mayor) Dave Bing\u2026 He\u2019s a good man trying to do a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The request was passed up the chain to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, \u201cand word came down that the move would be a bridge too far,\u201d Rattner wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new book by White House auto czar Steven Rattner reveals that the White House was hands-on in day-to-day GM decision-making even as President Obama fibbed to the public that \u201cour goal is to . . . take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly.\u201d The Washington meddling ran the gamut from personnel decisions to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5678,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions\/5678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}