Julie Hirschfeld Davis, The Associated Press
November 18, 2008 - 8:59 p.m.

WASHINGTON - Detroit’s Big Three automakers pleaded by a reluctant Congress Tuesday for a US$25-billion lifeline to save the once-proud titans of U.S. industry, pointedly warning of a national economic catastrophe should they collapse.

Millions of layoffs would follow their demise, they declared, as damaging effects rippled across an already-faltering economy.

But the new rescue plan appeared stalled attached Capitol Hill, opposed by the Bush superintendence and Republicans in Congress who dress in’t want to dip into the Treasury Department’s $700-billion financial bailout program to come up with the $25 billion in loans.

Rank and file Republicans and Democrats from states heavily impacted by the auto industry worked astern the scenes sad to hammer out a compromise that could thrive some prosper to the automakers before year’s end. But it was an uphill fight.

“Our endeavors … needs a bridge to span the financial cleft that has opened up before us,” General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee. He blamed the industry’s state not on management failures but on the deepening global financial crisis.

And Robert Nardelli, CEO of Chrysler LLC, told the panel the bailout would exist “the least costly alternative” when compared by damage from bankruptcy.

Under questioning from doubting senators, both declared they’d be willing to consider slashing their salaries to $1 to show a willingness to sacrifice for federal help.

Sympathy as antidote to the industry was sparse, however, through bailout fatigue dominating Capitol Hill. Lawmakers bristled with pent-up criticism of the auto industry, and questioned whether a stopgap loan would really cure what ails the companies.

At the start of a more than four hour grilling before his committee, Senator Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.), told the leaders of GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. that the industry was “seeking treatments for wounds that I believe to a large extent were self-inflicted.”

“You’re asking an awful lot,” Dodd, the panel chairman, said at the close of the session. “I’d like to tell that you in the nearest couple of days this is going to take place. I don’t reason it is.”

Senator Mike Enzi, (R-Wyo.), complained that the larger financial crisis “is not the only reason why the domestic auto industry is in trouble.”

He cited “inefficient production” and “costly labor agreements” that put the U.S. automakers at a disadvantage to foreign companies.