White House Open to Using Bank Bailout Money for Auto Bailout

The White House signaled it might use TARP money (the earlier $700 billion bailout) to help out the Big Three. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "Under normal economic conditions we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms. However, given the current weakened state of the U.S. economy, we will consider other options if necessary — including use of the TARP program — to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers.” The Treasury Department also signaled it could help prop up the automakers, and that helped the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 stay in positive territory. Also interesting: CNBC has a chart showing not just the one-day and one-week changes for stock market but the year-to-date change, too: The Dow is off by 35% for the year.