this is out of the senate banking committee and will feature ron bloom, the senior advisor of the auto industry for the treasury department. that will be live on c-span 3, and you can listen to it also on c-span radio. a story this morning and "the washington post." the house has approved this bill which would allow $4 billion under the house plan for cars and trucks sold in 1984 to be turned in for a voucher for the purchase of a car that has better fuel economy. to qualify for the $3,500 voucher a passenger car would have to get at least 4 miles per gallon more than the trade-in vehicle, qualify for a $4,500 voucher you have to get at least 10 miles per gallon more. when looking at small trucks to get $3,500 is 2 miles per gallon more. 5 miles per gallon more for $4,500. it goes on to other vehicles classes as well. good morning, on the madrid independent line. caller: good morning. i was going to give him a c, but i will probably go down to a d. while they are paying back money we still have the same systemic problems in banks beforas before crisis. nothing has changed. the burden o

ron bloom is a very experienced individual, advising labor and business leaders. he assists the secretary and the members of the auto task force. he's a founding partner of the investment firm, banking firm of keilan and bloom. mba from harvard. ed montgomery, dr. montgomery, joins us as president obama's director of recovery of auto communities and workers. formally left his post as dean of the college of social sciences at university of maryland. earned a ph.d. of economics from harvard and we're delighted to have both of you with us. we'll be begin in the order i introduced you. try to keep your remarks relatively brief. testimony, evidence, supporting documents will all be included as part of the record. >> yes, sir. good afternoon. chairman dodd, ranking member shelby, members of the senate banking committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. first let me apologize for the snafu with getting the material to you late and appreciate your indulgence on it and to commit to you it will not happen again. over the past several months, the ob

over here, ron bloom, who i talked about, here's mr. geithner, secretary of the treasury. here is former president bush. so this group forms our new clue travel edition and as we move forward, i think again it is important that the american public know who made the call to force these car companies into bankruptcy, who made the call to lie to 9,000 auto workers at eight plants across the country and who made the call that even though they don't cost anybody any money, we have to close all these dealerships and put people out of work. and you know, i keep hearing, and the gentleman has heard it too, that the -- this task force doesn't want to run the day-to-day operations of chrysler or g.m. but sadly for them, there is a -- an article that appeared on may 11 out of detroit that indicated chrysler wanted to spend $134 million in advertising in the period of its bankruptcy and this unelected task force told them they couldn't spend money on advertising. they finally relented and said, ok, you can spend half of it. but for a bunch of folks claiming they don't want to run the

in response to a question before the senate banking committee on june 10th, ron bloom of the auto task force said and i quote, we did not give the companies in the miracle targets but we certainly did say regarding plants and dealers regarding white and blue caller head count, regarding all these matters that you need to be more aggressive, closed quote. everyone agrees that these companies need to decrease costs and increase revenue by dealer cuts did not achieve these goals. it the other key elements of the restructurings provide direct and time and cost savings to gm and chrysler. in sharp contrast terminating a dealership does not provide any material cost savings. in the retail an hour, the land, the buildings, the employees, training, the dealers pay for all of this. as detailed in my written testimony we dispute the notion the dealer network imposes a significant per vehicle cost or any significant administrative costs on the manufacturers. indeed, company officials have been widely quoted as saying the manufacturer's cost do not very whether 6,000 dealers or 3,000 dealers. more

bloom, ron bloom, on the president's automobile task force and basically said, what happened? she was on the call she heard that everything was going to be ok. now all of a sudden she finds that a chrysler plant that provides 13% of her city's tax base is going to be closed and 1,200 people will be out of work. so basically she said, look, i watched the president, i was on these telephone calls. what happened? and mr. bloom, in a letter dated may 6, writes back that what the president's comments were meant to convey, they meant to convey the message that the bankruptcy of chrysler had in no way changed these plans. i ask unanimous consent to put this into the record as well. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. latourette: what the plans are they're talking about, both car companies, chrysler and g.m., filed viability plans with the task force in february, february 17, i believe. they were both rejected. but somewhere in conversations between the auto task force and chrysler, it was indicated there would have to be plant closures, but nobody told anybody. there was

ron bloom, a senior advisor on the auto industry at treasury. the other is mr. ed montgomery, white house director of recovery for auto communities and workers. and tomorrow over in the house of representatives, the financial services committee will hold a hearing on salaries of workers in companies the government owns. another obvious contender for the car czar award today is the administration's new chief price fixer for the cost of labor, mr. kenneth fineberg who will review and approve how managers of car companies are paid. according to "the new york times" article on june 8, mr. fineberg is likely not just to tell government-owned car companies and banks how much to pay people. it's likely -- quote -- "everyone else's compensation will be monitored too." but there is time next week to honor all these worthy contenders. today's car czar award clearly should go to the members of the wisconsin and michigan and tennessee congressional delegations, each of whom met today in washington with g.m. executives imploring them to build small cars in our home states. i

>> our workings every day with the auto task force would include in my case, steve ratner, ron bloom, harry wilson, and then they have a fairly small group, so we have gotten to know them pretty well but those would be the three principal people. >> they wanted you to be more aggressive than you displayed? >> across the board, the view of our plans was that it was not aggressive enough. >> how much money are you going to save when the dust settles and i guess these people are forced out of business and a whole bunch of people like them? tell me on your books how much money you will book as a savings. >> this is an area as i said before, it's about $1,000 per car of total distribution costs. we need to work that down over time. you can't -- there's no way you can point to one individual dealer. it can't be done that way. you have to look at it and say if you can take -- if you have $1,000 per car, you can over time economize that to $900 per car. that's a lot of money in our case. finally, this is all about actually then attracting capital to the dealer body over time. >> did you do an