Bush gave them the bailout. Also I am. GM employs tons of people and all of the domestic brands were already improving their quality and producing more desirable vehicles(well not counting chrysler but that's Daimler's fault). The the recession hit and every automaker's sales figures went down the *****(ford was lucky enough to have taken out a bigass loan before the recession hit). Honestly I don't get why the banks get a free pass for all their much bigger bailouts when they were known to spend them more irresponsibly and they caused the recession in the first place. Meanwhile GM continued to pump out newer more competetive(and in some cases class leading) vehicles and people ***** on the brand because they remember the 1992 chevy cavalier or their old ford pintos. GM and Chrysler got a tiny slice of the bailout pie and they have definitely changed since taking the money to put themselves in a better position. The banks took the money and haven't done jack *****.