White House Ruled Out Bailout for Detroit

Didn't think the idea was politically viable

The White House ruled out a bailout for bankrupt Detroit because it wasn't politically possible, a senior Obama administration official said Tuesday.

Gene Sperling, the director of the White House National Economic Council and the point person on the administration's efforts to help the struggling Motor City, told reporters Tuesday that it would have raised false hopes if the Obama administration had floated the idea of a bailout for Detroit.

"We did not feel we had any available financial tools, and secondly, we did not think that the prospect of legislation was even close to viable," Sperling told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "To have floated (a bailout) would have given false hope and taken people's eye off the important task ahead so what we tried to do was make clear that the federal government — we did not have tools at our disposal that could be helpful to Detroit."