Todd Zywicki Testifies Before House Subcommittee on Auto Bailouts and the Delphi Pension Decisions

July 12, 2012

On July 10 Professor Todd Zywicki presented testimony before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee TARP, Financial Services, and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs Subcommittee hearing on "The Administration's Auto Bailouts and the Delphi Pension Decisions: Who Picked the Winners and Losers?"

Appearing along with Zywicki at the Capitol Hill event were Christy Romero, special inspector general for the Trouble Asset Relief Program, Treasury Department; Ron Bloom, Matthew Feldman and Harry Wilson, former members of the Automotive Task Force, Treasury Department; and Nikki Clowers, director of financial markets and community investment at the Government Accountability Office.

In his testimony Zywicki told the subcommittee the cost of the automotive bailouts to U.S. taxpayers would have been $26.5 billion less, had the government treated the United Auto Workers (UAW) according to standard bankruptcy principles. "In light of the Treasury's estimate that the government will lose $23 billion on this investment, we conclude that the entire loss to the taxpayers is the result of preferentially favorable, and completely unjustified, treatment of the UAW in bankruptcy," Zywicki said.