This is beyond the pale- Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson, testifying on the House side, defended the administration's handling of the massive $700 billion bailout for the financial industry and said it should remain off-limits for Detroit, no matter how badly the automakers need help.

This is what U.S. auto executives testimony on the Hill said, from AP:

WASHINGTON – Detroit's Big Three automakers pleaded with Congress on Tuesday for a $25 billion lifeline to save the once-proud titans of U.S. industry, warning of a national economic catastrophe should they collapse.

From the NYT:

Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, said he would not support legislation to aid the auto companies and seemed prepared to let one or all of them collapse...

“Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes crippling automakers’ competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.

But for the Bush and the Republicans it is all about politics.

In the Senate, Democrats discussed but rejected the option favored by the White House and GOP lawmakers to let the auto industry use a $25 billion loan program created by Congress in September — designed to help the companies develop more fuel-efficient vehicles — to tide them over financially until President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

Bush and his Republicans think that they can pull a fast one by splitting the Democratic Party into two camps- environmentalists and blue-collar factions.

Isn't this beyond the cheap points of political gamesmanship?

Jobs are on the line and the pensions of retirees, but Republicans still want to play "chicken" with those jobs rather then realize that by letting the auto industry fail will have the same effect on the nation as has Paulson's "experiment" to let Lehman Brothers fail.