Washington—Senator Evan Bayh made the following statement today urging passage of emergency auto rescue legislation to prevent the loss of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs in Indiana and across the country:

“We’re faced with trying to choose the best among unpalatable alternatives. Nobody wanted to give money to the banks or to the insurance companies, and nobody wants to give money to the auto industry. I don’t. But if the alternative is losing hundreds of thousands of jobs and having automakers, dealerships, part suppliers, and other retailers in local communities go down, we have to make a hard choice here.

“People think the economy is bad now, but if we let all these companies go belly up, and all those folks get laid off, I’m afraid it would be much worse.

“Indiana has a huge stake in this debate. If the big auto companies go down and thousands of jobs are lost, it’s going to hit us a lot harder than almost any place else in the country.

“We are establishing strict criteria that the auto companies have to meet, and we are insisting that all of the different stakeholders make the sacrifices necessary for the long-term survival of the industry.”

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