December 23, 2008
The nation's largest seller of domestic cars and trucks is traveling to Capitol Hill today -- not just to encourage Congress to pass a rescue package for the Detroit Three, but also to tell legislators that access to auto loans is getting even worse.
Mike Jackson, the chief executive officer of AutoNation Inc., with 239 dealerships in 15 states, told the Free Press on Sunday that, despite efforts to get banks to begin lending again, it is increasingly difficult to get auto loans approved.
"We're turning away outstanding customers. We can't get them financed," said Jackson, whose opinion column on the subject was published Sunday in the New York Post. "The credit situation is getting worse."
The situation is particularly concerning, Jackson said, because there's no way Detroit's automakers can recover, even if they get the $34 billion in federal loans they seek, if consumers are unable to buy vehicles.
"The more urgent issue, and the deciding issue, about what happens in this industry is the normalization of credit," Jackson said. "The situation is very serious."
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, expressed similar concerns Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"If consumers can't afford to buy cars, the industry is going to fail," he said. "There's a credit issue here that we're not really talking about. ... Credit is frozen."
Source:http://www.freep.com/article