Correct, but I do not want the tax payers to be playing risky games, based on success or failures of a private corporation. Tax payers lost money on GM bailout, and made money on Chrysler bailout. It is not the governments job to run a casino.
GM employs 220,000 people. At an average salary of about $60,000, which makes them more valuable than some of the other companies with higher headcounts.
That's almost $13 billion in salaries a year. Now if those employees pay 15% in tax, they are generating almost $2 billion in income taxes a year. So basically in 5 years, we'd make up that $10 billion loss.
But that doesn't count all the indirect companies that were saved by the GM bailout. My guess is it's probably double that number of employees, if you think about all the suppliers and dealers.
And it also doesn't count the avoidance cost of having 220,000 to 440,000 Americans in the unemployment line, drawing food stamps, on medicaid, etc.
And those $13 Billion in salaries less $2 Billion in taxes gets mostly spent into the American economy. So they support even more salaries and more income taxes.
So was the bailout a good move for America? Yes, if the only alternative was to let it fail. Was it done perfectly. No. The standard legal process wasn't followed, and political games were played, etc.