Unfortunately, most people do not understand how much money the big3 automotive pump into the economy. One reason the economy is failing now is that our industrial base is has er roded over the last 8 years to a point that we have lost a huge part of our tax base as penalized those industries that thrive serving the manufacturing sector.
No one is really happy about bailing out the automotive industry, but allowing them to fail would be so disastrous for the entire nation that it just cannot be allowed to happen this way.
In reality, this crisis is NOT the fault of the automotive industry, or at least not because of overpaid workers and poor quality. That is a myth.