Officials: Outcomes of bankruptcies were political

Cleveland Plain Dealer

WASHINGTON

Members of a House of Representatives subcommittee on Wednesday accused the Obama administration of making politically motivated decisions in picking the winners and losers in the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies.

Subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican from the Urbana area, juxtaposed the success of GM’s still-open Lordstown plant with the closure of a GM facility in his district in Mansfield, illustrating the government decided who would endure restructuring.

Members of Congress also questioned why salaried employees of GM’s bankrupt parts supplier, Delphi, got a worse pension deal during the bankruptcy than their union counterparts.

Bruce Gump of Warren, the vice chairman of the salaried group’s retiree association, told the committee his group was discriminated against because the government viewed it as less able to defend itself.