...because that's obviously what they're shooting for,

A plan to give troubled U.S. automakers billions of dollars in government-backed loans is on life support, leaving the fate of hundreds of thousands of workers and Detroit's once-venerable car companies hanging in the balance.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled plans Wednesday for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new auto industry loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans have rejected Democrats' plan to dip into that pot of money.

...Congressional Democrats countered that the Treasury Department already had the power to grant emergency funds to the automakers, but the Bush administration opposed the approach.

...The stakes are high. The Detroit automakers employ nearly a quarter-million workers, and more than 730,000 other workers produce materials and parts that go into cars. About 1 million more people work in dealerships nationwide. If just one of the automakers declared bankruptcy, some estimates put U.S. job losses next year as high as 2.5 million.

The White House and congressional Republicans have called on Democrats to support a GOP plan to divert a $25 billion loan program created by Congress in September - designed to help the companies develop more fuel-efficient vehicles - to meet the auto giants' immediate financial needs.

Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Kit Bond. R-Mo., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, are trying to broker an alternative that could provide bridge loans or a guarantee that the fuel-efficiency loan fund ultimately would be replenished. Negotiators were discussing a scaled-down aid package of $5 billion to $8 billion to help the automakers survive through year's end.

But it was unclear whether any progress could be made. Democrats strongly oppose letting the car companies tap into the energy loans for short-term cash-flow needs.

Despite the gridlock in Congress, there could be a contingency plan: a return to Washington in December for another postelection session to try to strike a deal.

Here's what it all comes down to: the Democrats don't really want to fix the main problem with the Big 3 automakers -- excessive labor costs -- because the unions are their biggest allies. Heck, the Democratic Party is getting paid off with that money! So, Chapter 11 is out.

This presents a huge problem for the Dems because given how the economy is today, The Big 3 are going to need a lot more than 25 billion dollars. Heck, they'd be back in a year (or less!) with their hands out again after being given that much.

So, what they're going to want to do is give the Big 3 a much, much larger number to kick the can down the road a few years. That's a problem because the Republicans and the public are balking hard at giving the Big 3 ANOTHER 25 billion dollars of taxpayer money (There are already 25 billion in loans on the table that aren't being tapped yet).

Since that's the case, the Dems are going to desperately try to get the GOP to sign on to this whole thing to give them cover (Bush did that!). The smartest thing that the Republican Party could do would be to oppose this bailout & hammer the Democrats incessantly for catering to special interests with taxpayer money.

PS: Would it be too cynical to suggest that one of the car companies may already have some plant shutdowns planned for December? That way, they can stoke the news with "auto workers who are unemployed for Christmas stories" before the Dems inevitably come back later in the year to snooker the GOP into funneling "emergency" funds to the Big 3.