Rattner: Failure of GM, Chrysler Would Have Killed Ford

If the U.S. government had not bailed out Chrysler and General Motors in 2009, their collapse would have dragged Ford down with them, says Steven Rattner, who headed the Obama administration's auto task force.

He tells a policy group in Washington, D.C., that American suppliers were "in arguably worse shape" that domestic carmakers. The failure of GM and Chrysler would have devastated the supply base, according to Rattner.

"Ford would have closed because it wouldn't have been able to get parts," he declares. Analysts have opined that the same issue would have inflicted deep though probably temporary disruptions to the U.S. production of Japanese and German automakers.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally testified in Congress in late 2008 in support of a government rescue of his domestic rivals because their survival was vital to Ford.

Rattner also tacitly challenged the position of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that GM and Chrysler should have used private not government financing to get through bankruptcy. Rattner says that in early 2009 the banks were floundering and corporate loans had dried up, leaving the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury the only possible lender.