Bush to provide emergency loans to Big Three

The troubled U.S. auto industry will receive emergency loans of up to $17.4 billion from the federal government in return for an extensive restructuring of its outstanding debt and labor costs over the coming year, President Bush said today. Closer look: About 2.5 million American jobs in dangerGlass MagazineWhat would you do with the Big Three?glassblog

In a step he said was necessary to avoid a "disorderly" collapse of one of the country's staple manufacturing businesses, Bush said the federal aid is meant only to provide a window while the companies decide how to restructure and prove that they can become viable.

If that is not done within three months, Bush said, the federal government will call its loans and let individual companies declare bankruptcy or fail, according to a Dec. 19 article in The Washington Post.