GM, Chrysler requests may not be enough

WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama's chief liaison to distressed U.S. automakers said $21.6 billion in loans already requested may fall far short of the companies' needs.

Funds needed to keep General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC afloat "could be considerably higher," Steve Rattner said in a television interview, the Detroit Free Press reported Friday.

"What they've asked for depends on them achieving plans that are somewhat ambitious," Rattner said. "Like all management teams they tend to take a reasonably, slightly perhaps, optimistic view of their business."

While the Treasury contemplates whether to extend further emergency assistance to automakers, auto dealerships found political support Friday, as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged the government to open the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to auto retailers.

"The current requirements of the TALF program effectively exclude domestic auto finance companies who have been the traditional lenders to dealers," the senators said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Eight senators -- including Democrats Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin of Michigan; Kit Bond, R-Mo.; George Voinovich, R-Ohio; Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Thomas Carper, D-Del.; and Herb Kohl, D-Wis.; signed the letter, The Detroit News reported.