The House just passed the $14 billion Big 3 auto bailout bill by a vote of 237-170 with just a little help from Orange County’s congressional delegation.
Four of the county’s six members voted on this deal and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the delegations’ only Democrat was also the only yes vote.
Reps. Ken Calvert and Ed Royce voted no. And Rep. John Campbell, a former car dealer, voted present.  Campbell, R-Irvine, a former auto dealer who still owns land in Orange County that is leased to dealers, has not voted on any auto bailout measures because he is concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Reps. Gary Miller and Dana Rohrabacherwere not here. Miller said in a statement he put in the record that House leaders gave lawmakers only a few hours notice that the vote would be today and that didn’t give him enough time to get here. Rohrabacher is in Russia on a trip for the Foreign Relations Committee and also couldn’t get back in time.
Passage in the House doesn’t mean the money is in the bank for the struggling auto companies. Not by a long shot. A group of Senate Republicans are promising to filibuster and not all Democrats there are supporting it. It looks now like the first Senate vote on all this will be on Friday.

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The £50bn recapitalisation of Britains eight largest banks, with the state providing £37bn for Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB, was based on business models that assumed a small amount of loan growth. However, as the political clamour to extend lines of credit to small businesses has grown, top industry figures fear banks will have no choice but request more state money.
Highlighting the tension between the industry and Government, one source said: If someone wants them to do more lending than they had wanted, then they will need more capital. The banks were planning to grow their balance sheets but not by as much as the politicians seem to want them to at the moment.
The Financial Services Authority instructed each bank in October to raise capital on an eight, six, four basis, where core tier one ratios had to be raised to 8pc and remain above 4pc in the event of an extreme recession. To establish how much capital was needed, the FSA took into account the banks business plans.
However, the volume of lending the Government appears to be demanding is significantly more than those plans envisaged. Added to which, the sharp cut in interest rates – from 4.5pc to 2pc in the past two months – is squeezing profit margins more than expected. Under the banks plans, profits would also be used to replenish capital.
Simon Ward, New Stars economist, said: It is not just the volume of lending but the interest charge thats the issue. If banks are being asked to lend significantly more without fully pricing in the risks that puts their capital positions in jeopardy and may mean they need a further capital injection in a year or two.
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has refused to rule out the prospect of further state support, recently warning that we may not have come to an end in the process of recapitalisation.
Senior insiders believe further capital injections are not the only way of addressing the issue. They believe the Government could also make its support package cheaper, thereby helping the banks generate profits.
The recapitalisation programme includes expensive funding – a 12pc coupon on £9bn of preference shares and punitive charges on the £250bn loan guarantee scheme to help the institutions fund in the wholesale markets. No other country to have mimicked the UK plan is so expensive. The US, for example, is charging a coupon of just 5pc on the preference shares.
The pressures on banks prompted an angry statement today from Michael Coogan, director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders. He said: “To different degrees lenders are facing conflicting pressures to recapitalise against possible future losses, service Government’s preference shareholdings at 12pc, pay a premium to access the Bank of England Special Liquidity Scheme, show forbearance to borrowers in arrears, follow base rate moves down to help their existing borrowers, keep savings rates high to support existing savers, and provide competitive rates to new borrowers and savers to maintain economic activity in a recession.
“Current policy objectives are conflicting and incoherent. The Government needs to decide on its key priority. The tug of war with lenders being pulled in every direction at once needs to end. We believe the Government urgently needs to review the cumulative effect of the approach it has taken in the recapitalisation process on large lenders’ willingness and capacity to lend.”
Mr Ward added: “Banks are being asked to subsidise the risks of their customers, so the Government ought to offer more of a subsidy to them in its support facilities.” Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are thought to be resistant to the idea because they are keen for the recapitalisation scheme to be seen as good value for the taxpayer.

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