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Congress Gives Citibank Bailout Cash But None for Detroit Automakers

The feds pump another $20 billion into teetering Citigroup Inc. and insure $306 billion in bad assets just days after Congress slaps Detroit’s automakers for failing to table “a plan” to justify $25 billion in loans and folks ’round here cry, “Double standard! Double standard!”

Double standard? You bet, but it’s more than a geographic cabal of coastal Democrats and anti-union, pro-foreign auto Republicans from the South that clearly has it in for Detroit. It’s money and political alliances, folks, neither of which the boys at General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have in abundant supply.

How come Citigroup gets a pass and a big fat check? First, failure of its sprawling operations truly would pose a mortal threat to the global financial system. Second, the banking giant is exceedingly well connected to the campaign wallets of the very same folks — and their allies — who are poised to foist draconian terms on Detroit to keep it afloat.

It gets better. This being Thanksgiving Day, launch Google and type in “Chris Dodd campaign contributions.” Up will pop a link to an interesting site called opensecrets.org, a product of the independent Center for Responsive Politics. Who was the top contributor to Dodd between 2003 and 2008?

Citigroup — or, more precisely, its political action committee, whose contributions totaled $316,494. In the 2008 election cycle alone, Dodd received $157,194 from Citigroup’s PAC. From AIG, he garnered $223,478 between ’03 and ’08, taking in $98,100 this year from the beleaguered insurer propped up by $150 billion of taxpayer money.