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Nobody is really paying the government back anyway. It's not "paying the money back" when you are getting more than the loan amount given back to you in the form of tax breaks.
GM is not, in the strictest sense, paying back taxpayers at all. Rather, it is refunding $6.7 billion of an $18 billion escrow account that was given to it by the government when it emerged from bankruptcy. The rest of that account will be used to cover fourth-quarter losses (including $2.8 billion pledged for the rescue of GM’s major parts supplier, Delphi), repay loans from the Canadian government, and prop up the automaker’s shaky European operations. That escrow account is due to expire in June, at which time GM will repay what remains of the $6.7 billion (as they announced on December 15th). Of course, they will then pocket the estimated $5.6 billion remainder of the escrow account.
And let's be honest, $6.7 billion doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what GM actually owes the American taxpayers. Over the past 12 months, the Department of the Treasury has given it some $52 billion in the form of cash, loans and the purchase of that 60 percent of the company’s post-bankruptcy equity. Add even more if you take into account the two bailouts of GM’s former lending arm, GMAC, or the $3 billion spent on GM's portion of the “cash for clunkers program,” which doubtless kept the company from posting even deeper losses than what has already been disclosed.
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