Big Three Automakers to Get $17.4 Billion

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration came to the rescue of the troubled U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in loans in exchange for concessions from carmakers and their workers.

President George W. Bush says letting the automakers collapse is “not a responsible course of action.“

He says the rescue plan will require “meaningful concessions” from the auto companies and others, including labor unions and suppliers. The companies, he says, “must understand what is at stake, and make the hard decisions necessary to reform.“

Bush said Friday he ordinarily would let the companies go bankrupt, concluding it’s the “price that failed companies must pay.“ But, he says, “These are not ordinary circumstances.“ He says letting the industry collapse, amid a financial crisis and a recession, would be irresponsible.

He says there’s “too great a risk” that a bankruptcy filing would lead to a “disorderly liquidation of American auto companies” and send the economy into a “deeper and longer recession.“