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BUSINESS

Opposition To Auto Bailouts Is Now Below 50%

For the first time, most Americans don’t think last year’s government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler was a bad move.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 46% of Adults say that it was bad idea for the federal government to provide bailout funding for GM and Chrysler. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say the bailouts were  a good idea, but 16% remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

As recently as July, 56% viewed the bailouts as a bad idea.  This was consistent with what voters had felt about the bailouts from Day One.

But General Motors has been posting more positive news in recent months and last week announced a $15.8-billion public stock offering. According to the Los Angeles Times, the government received $11.8 billion in that stock offering and reduced its ownership stake in GM from 61% to 36%.

However, the price of General Motors stock will have to rise significantly for taxpayers to recoup the $50 billion in direct bailout funds given to GM. Since its initial offering, GM stock has fallen slightly.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. 

The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on November 18-19, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Are most Americans confident yet that GM will still be in business 10 years from now? How do investors feel about the auto bailouts these days? Become a Platinum member and find out.

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