Now, more than ever before, as GM goes, so goes the U.S.

Now, more than ever before, as GM goes, so goes the U.S.

When General Motors was in its mid-life prime in 1953, the company president, Charles Wilson, told Congress that what was good for the country was good for GM and vice versa.

If GM does as is expected tomorrow and files for bankruptcy, Wilson’s assessment will never be more true, because company and country will be joined at the hip. The United States will own 72 percent of GM, a United Auto Workers trust will own 17 percent and bondholders will own the rest. Stockholders, who saw their shares trade at Great Depression prices Friday, will own worthless paper.

As recently as the boom days of 2000, GM had a market capitalization of $50 billion. Now it’s preparing for a bankruptcy reorganization that we continue to fear is being oversold as a quick and almost painless cure for whatever ails what was once the largest corporation in the world.

Because as GM goes, so goes the Mahoning Valley, we can only hope that the Obama administration, which through its auto task force was obviously inclined from its earliest days to push for bankruptcy, is making the right move. If so, GM will emerge as a leaner more competitive automaker and the Valley will profit as the production site of the new company’s newest model, the Chevrolet Cruze.

The winner writes the history

If all goes according to administration plan, Obama’s auto czar, Dr. Ed Montgomery, will be able to write the history of a revitalized U.S. auto industry. If not, former GM CEO Rick Wagoner, whom the administration forced into retirement before announcing its rejection of GM’s nonbankruptcy restructuring plan two months ago, could become one of the historians of record.

The UAW has made contract concessions that meet a target GM had set in its own restructuring plan of reducing hourly production costs to that of foreign-owned car plants operating in the United States. It’s shedding divisions, reducing brands and pursing the production of fuel efficient vehicles. Against conventional wisdom, it even announced plans last week to build a very small car in an idled U.S. plant.

All that, however, hinges on a glitch-free reorganization of 60 to 90 days — one that preserves GM’s supplier base, dealership network and customer confidence. And it depends on the relatively quick restoration of an economic climate in which people begin shopping for new cars again, especially American-made new cars.