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Credit: Vanity Fair

President Barack Obama took an oath to "promote the general Welfare." Venture capitalist Mitt Romney pledged to maximize shareholder value. Unfortunately, candidate Mitt Romney is pretending the two are the same thing. As Romney repeatedly insisted this month, President Obama's rescue of the U.S. auto industry and over one million jobs associated with it is little different than his own Bain Capital days of slashing jobs - and extracting profits.

Romney introduced the new defense of his "vulture capital" past during the December 15 GOP debate in Sioux City, Iowa. There, he took Obama to task for layoffs at General Motors as part of the successful auto bailout Romney opposed:

"In the real world, some things don't make it, and I believe I've learned from my successes and my failures. The President, I'll look at and say: 'Mr. President, how did you do when you were running General Motors as the president, took it over? Gee, you closed down factories. You closed down dealerships. And he'll say: 'Well, I did that to save the business.' Same thing with us, Mr. President. We did our very best to make those businesses succeed. I'm pleased that they did, and I've learned the lessons of how the economy works. This president doesn't know how the economy works. I believe to create jobs, it helps to have created jobs."

Days later, the son of American Motors magnate George Romney repeated the talking point:

"The president has had one experience overseeing an enterprise -- a couple of enterprises, General Motors and Chrysler," Romney told Fox News in an interview that aired Sunday. "What did he do? He closed factories. He laid off people. He didn't do it personally, but his people did. Why did he do that? Because he wanted to save the enterprise, and he wants to make it profitable so it can survive."

No. In 2009, President Obama was trying to save an entire industry, one at the very heart of American manufacturing. In so doing, Obama likely helped save the United States from a second Great Depression.

As McClatchy reported this week:

U.S. and foreign automakers are poised to add nearly 167,000 U.S. jobs by the end of 2015, according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. That breaks down to 30,000 hourly and salaried workers at the Big Three U.S. automakers, 17,000 jobs at foreign automakers and about 120,000 auto-supply sector jobs...

Most analysts say the industry's growing stability is sweet vindication for the federal government's $80 billion bailout, which allowed General Motors and Chrysler to reorganize. The Center for Automotive Research estimates that the bailouts saved more than 1.1 million jobs in 2009 and another 314,000 in 2010, while avoiding personal income losses of more than $96 billion.

(The November 2010 CAR analysis is available here.)

And over time, the federal tax revenue from that personal and business income will more than offset any potential losses the government might sustain from its future sales of GM stock. As USA Today noted in June in admitting the success of the Obama administration's bailout of Detroit:

That loss is nothing to sneeze at. It's a heck of a lot better, though, than the $108 billion to $156 billion the government would have lost over three years if it hadn't intervened, according to the Center for Automotive Research, a Detroit-based think tank. Those losses would have come in the form of lower tax receipts and higher spending for pension guarantees, jobless pay and other benefits.

As for Mitt Romney, who famously insisted in November 2008 that Washington should "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," USA Today rightly pointed out, "On what planet would the automakers have found private lenders willing to provide tens of billions of dollars in needed bankruptcy financing at the height of a financial panic?"

In a nutshell, President Obama's tough actions, including painful layoffs and pay cuts for auto workers, saved American jobs, American taxpayer revenue and perhaps the American economy. But for Mitt Romney and his Bain colleagues, the benefits often went into their pockets alone.

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A C&L reader sent in the following horror story:

I have continued to follow C&L through the years and enjoy the attention you give to the issues. I have seen a lot recently about home foreclosures and the ugly means banks are employing to get their hands on people’s property. I would like to ask that you also give some attention to another illegal activity going on—illegal car repossessions.

I have leased cars from Chrysler Financial and Beurge Chrysler Jeep since 2002. When my second lease came to an end in June of this year I had three options offered me by Chrysler: 1-buy the car, 2-turn the car in and begin a new lease or purchase another vehicle, or 3-extend the lease for up to 12 additional months. Since my wife and I are experiencing some rough financial times we decided to go with Option 3-extend our lease. We continued to do so each month until we could buy the car sometime in the next year. However, on September 20 a man showed up at our door claiming Chrysler had ordered a repossession. He refused to give any identification or proof of the order. He also refused to look at the documentation we had that proves our account is on good standing. In fact we had just received confirmation earlier that day that payment had been received for the next month. He took the car anyway.

We have tried, without success, to reach Chrysler Financial and resolve this issue. At first we thought it must be a simple mistake that Chrysler would correct. It does not appear that way anymore. Based on what we have been told by Chrysler reps, Chrysler wanted the car back because it had very low mileage and they could make a bigger profit than by allowing us to continue leasing and purchase at a later date. We have looked at the law and the only way a car can be repossessed is if the account is in default. I want to reiterate that our account has never been in default.

So, we are left without a car—that was our only vehicle. My wife is disabled and needs weekly treatment that she has not been getting because we can’t get her to appointments.

I am telling you this story because we have learned that we are not the only ones to have this happen. A Google search will bring up many pages of illegal repossessions being reported. I understand it may not be the eye-catching news item of 100k home foreclosures but it is happening to thousands of people who have done nothing wrong and yet are being bullied and deprived of their transportation by a company that received taxpayer money and wants to make more money. And BTW, Chrysler refuses to return the payment we made for 9/20—10/20, a period for which we do not have use of our car.

Thank you for any attention you can bring to this issue.

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And so it begins:

The chairman and chief executive of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, is resigning, just hours before President Obama was expected to unveil his rescue plans for G.M. and the ailing American auto industry, a person close to the decision said Sunday.

Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down as part of G.M.’s restructuring agreement with the Obama administration, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement has not been made yet. Mr. Wagoner then agreed to resign.The unexpected move by Mr. Wagoner, who has been at the helm of G.M. for eight years, was not confirmed by the company. A statement about Mr. Wagoner’s future will be issued after the president’s comments, which is expected to be Monday morning.

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So Preznit Bush finally did the right thing and announced a $17.4 billion bailout for U.S. automakers in the hope that doing so will keep Republicans from being permanently branded the Party of Hoover:

The White House announced a $17.4 billion rescue package for the troubled Detroit auto makers that allows them to avoid bankruptcy and leaves many of the big decisions for the incoming Obama administration.

Speaking from the White House, President George W. Bush said the administration decided against forcing a bankruptcy to compel cost-cutting, in order to avoid the risk that consumers would desert one or more of the companies and touch off an industry collapse, deepening the current economic downturn.

"In the midst of a financial crisis...allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action," Mr. Bush said.

"Under ordinary economic circumstances, I would say 'this is the price that failed companies must pay' and I would not favor intervening to prevent the auto makers from going out of business," the president said. "But these are not ordinary circumstances."

Of course, the wingnut faction of his party is seriously pissed. Michelle Malkin wants someone to file a lawsuit to prevent it from proceeding, while the Heritage Foundation folks are just gnashing their teeth.

Because, of course, their preference is to see millions of Americans thrown out of work.

It used to be said that a recession was the Republican method for shortening the lift lines at the ski hill. A Depression must be their method for making the ski hill their own private playgrounds.

Fortunately, Bush -- who's focused these days on his legacy -- doesn't seem to feel he needs to listen to them anymore.

Jane has more.

In typical smart alek form, Jon questions why Congress is so reluctant to give the auto industry any financial relief, even though they supported the Wall Street bailout that literally has resulted in billions of unaccounted-for monies.

"The CEOs of the Big 3 automakers flew to Washington to ask for $25 billion dollars from the new government's new 'money-for-incompetence' program."

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Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina gives the party line on the virtues of letting the Big Three go bankrupt to MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell:

Sanford: We have examples before where businesses have gone into Chapter 11 and have come out stronger as a result. If you look at United Airlines back in 2002, it went into Chapter 11 and yet people got on planes every day and, quote, risked their lives if they took a United flight. And it worked out -- United is still up and going.

If you look just recently, Circuit City filed Chapter 11, people are still going in during the holiday season and shopping for cameras and videos and all the other things that one shops for. Circ -- I mean, Chapter 11 is simply a way to reorganize a business, and to make decisions that you oftentimes cannot make without those bankruptcy law protections.

So what I would humbly suggest to the Big Three is, given the fact that certain things are clearly not in order with regard to their finances, use that tool as opposed to taxpayers, which is the easier course for them, but the much harder course for the rest of us as taxpayers, as the bailout mechanism.

Notice anything missing? What Sanford conveniently neglects to tell the MSNBC audience is what some of those "decisions you cannot make without those bankruptcy law protections" include, to wit:

-- The company can tear up any existing union contract it likes. Say goodbye, UAW.

-- It can wipe out all its existing pension plans.

Sanford touts the United Airlines example, but neglects to mention that one of the really pernicious effects of that bankruptcy was how it utterly destroyed the company's pension system. There was a huge human toll paid, with 9/11 widows among the victims.

There will be a similarly monstrous human toll paid if we follow Sanford's plan. But then, for Republicans like him, that's a negligible cost to begin with.