LAS VEGAS -- Former President George W. Bush, who extended bridge loans to the auto industry as one of his administration's last acts, told auto dealers Monday he would do it all again.
Bush gave the closing address to about 22,000 dealers and their families attending the annual National Automobile Dealers Association convention.
Bush told the audience he thought he would be able to ride off into the sunset in his last year as the nation's leader. But the financial crisis led to a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who warned of a pending depression if drastic actions were not taken.
Bush said he was a believer in the marketplace and that corporations had to pay for their own problems or bad decisions.
"But sometimes circumstances get in the way of philosophy," Bush said. "I would make the same decision again."
The Bush administration gave the auto industry $25 billion in emergency aid including $13.4 billion for General Motors and $4 billion for Chrysler, as well as aid for their finance companies.
The Obama administration offered another $60 billion in early 2009.
Chrysler, which repaid its loans last May, six years before required, last week reported earning $183 million in 2011, its first full-year profit since 2005.
GM has repaid about $23 billion, but the Treasury still owns about 26% of GM's stock.
In his 2010 memoir "Decision Points," Bush said he knew he had to rescue General Motors and Chrysler even though he felt mismanagement contributed to their crises.
Bush said in the book that he decided in early November 2008 to save GM and Chrysler -- far earlier than was publicly known -- and privately told Barack Obama he would save the automakers in an Oval Office meeting.
Keeping the two automakers alive "was the only option," Bush wrote. "The immediate bankruptcy of (Chrysler and GM) could cost more than a million jobs, decrease tax revenues by $150 billion and set back America's Gross Domestic Product by hundreds of billions of dollars."
Bush sprinkled Monday's speech with humorous anecdotes about himself, even poking fun at his tendency to mangle certain phrases. But he said his passion for the job and the country he served never wavered.
He confessed that he misses some of the perks of being the nation's chief executive.
"I had to stop at some stoplights coming in from the airport," Bush said.
Detroit Free Press