DETROIT — The Obama administration has dropped the idea of appointing a “car czar” to oversee the revamping of General Motors and Chrysler and will instead put the politically delicate task in the hands of a presidential panel, a senior administration official with knowledge of the plan said Sunday night.
President Obama is designating the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers, to oversee the group. Mr. Geithner will also supervise the $17.4 billion in loan agreements already in place with G.M. and Chrysler, said the official, who insisted on anonymity.
The official also said that Ron Bloom, a restructuring expert who has advised the labor unions in the troubled steel and airline industries, would be named a senior adviser to Treasury on the auto crisis.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Just Say No To Czars
Not sure a panel is necessarily better than one person, but I never did like the One Great Man vision of how to get things done.