The Washington Post printed my letter about General Motors today (Sunday, May 31, 2009), and put it at the top of the letters column. I'm sure the punch line intrigued the editors:

Detroit's Answer to Amtrak?
Sunday, May 31, 2009

The federal government obviously can't make up its mind about General Motors.

On the one hand, it is lending the company huge sums -- up to $70 billion under one scenario. The only way the company will be able to pay back such loans is to make profits. But GM's last profitable year was 2004, when it made a modest $2.7 billion. Even if GM returned to its glory days and made $6 billion or $7 billion a year, not all of the profit could be devoted to debt repayment, so it could take 20 years or more to pay off the government debt.

In the meantime, the government would basically own the company and would have to run it, which the Obama administration has said it doesn't intend to do. But if the owners don't run the company, who will?

On top of that, the administration has announced mileage standards [front page, May 19] that will add at least $1,300 to the price of a car and will, inevitably, favor the building of small cars, which historically lose money compared with trucks, SUVs and luxury cars. So how will GM ever get back to profitability and repay the federal government? Or is the government simply going to have a captive car company that sells cars at a loss? GM would be the Amtrak of the highways.

RICHARD L. LOBB


Fairfax