ROMNEY: You know, there are always going to be bad characters, but I think you also have an opportunity as a governor, as a senator, and particularly as a new president, to put in place a whole series of ethical conduct standards, whether they're part of the law or whether they're just the procedures that you establish, to set a tone for your administration. {Oh really Mitt?? Gee wonder if anyone DIDN'T do something like that :think: )
ROMNEY: You know, I don't think anybody would pine for that job. There are a lot of people who I think would do an effective job in carrying out a leadership role to help
restructure the auto industry, but I don't think anybody's asking for that job. I don't know that anyone has been asked.
Watch Greta's interview with former Gov. Mitt Romney
But let me make a couple of points in this regard. One is, we want the U.S. auto industry to survive, to grow, to thrive. Two is that if we just send money to Detroit and say, Keep playing the game the way you have, that's not going to happen. What'll happen is the industry will decline and decline over the years until it doesn't exist anymore.
So what is needed is the opportunity to dramatically
restructure the costs of making cars by Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. And for that to happen, you're going to have to have either a very powerful czar of some kind who can step in and open up contracts and change the basic structure of the industry, or go through a pre-packaged, managed bankruptcy. The government is going to be part of this process either through the courts or through a super-powerful car czar, if you will. But business as usual is not the way to preserve these jobs and to build a brighter future for the many people who work in the auto industry.
And by the way, as a son of Detroit, my dad was a CEO of a car company, I care very deeply about seeing this industry get
restructured so that they can become resurgent and be a major employer for many, many years to come. There's no reason why Detroit can't play and win in the world market.
ROMNEY: Well, the preference is to make sure that there is a
restructuring because if you've got a $2,000 per car cost disadvantage, the American domestic manufacturers are not going to be able to compete either with the transplants -- those are the foreign guys who come and build factories here -- or with imports. And so you're going to have to see that
restructuring.
If the car czar, which exists in the current bill -- and I haven't read the current bill, so I can't be too specific in that regard. But if that car czar doesn't have the authority to actually reduce the costs in the industry and make these companies competitive, then we will just be throwing good money after bad.
And the right thing to do here is to make sure that we do
restructure these costs. That happens in bankruptcy. There are some down sides in bankruptcy, too. They could be alleviated by government participating in the process, either through a pre-packaged bankruptcy, they call it, where you agree to terms beforehand, go through bankruptcy to dot the I's and cross the T's. Or it could be done through a special piece of legislation, giving -- giving this car czar real authority.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,465286,00.html
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