No-Go Bailout

When the Senate voted last week against a federal bailout for Detroit’s Big Three automakers, it had public opinion on its side. Most recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans oppose such a bailout. In a Pew Research Center poll, 54 percent of Americans it was the “wrong thing” for government to “spend billions of dollars” in loans to help keep General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler in business, compared to 39 percent who said it was the “right thing.” In a CNN/Gallup poll conducted on December 9, 51 percent of Americans opposed “the federal government giving major financial assistance to the Big Three U.S. automotive companies if they are close to going broke or declaring bankruptcy,” compared to 43 percent who favored it. By comparison, when CNN/Gallup asked the question in mid-November, those numbers were 49 percent and 47 percent, respectively, a percentage-point difference that was well within the poll’s margin of error. But when CNN/ORC asked Americans a similar question in early December—this time adding that the government program would provide automakers with “several billion dollars in assistance”—only 36 percent of Americans favored it. 

Source: CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, December 2008.