Click the play button to see what Jack and our viewers had to say.
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
As GM goes, so goes the nation...That's the old motto anyway. Financially neither one is looking so good right now. And General Motors, along with Ford and Chrysler, is looking for some help from our already cash-strapped government to get back on track. Estimates are if the Big Three go belly up, unemployment could hit 10 percent.
But doubts about a bailout for the auto industry grew yesterday on Capitol Hill as Democratic leaders conceded they don't have the votes to get a measure through in next week's lame duck session.
Watch: Cafferty: GM worth saving?
If General Motors fails– and it would likely be the first of the Big Three to fall because Ford is in better shape and Chrysler is a much smaller company– the impact would be huge. It's not just the hundreds of thousands of jobs at GM that would be lost, it's literally thousands of smaller companies all over the country that sell their products to GM. It's highly likely many of them would fail as well.
As Time Magazine's Bill Saporito put it quote, "The decision that Washington has to make is whether we pay for G-M's survival or for its funeral."
Because whether G-M gets help from the government or not, as taxpayers, we are on the hook. We'll have to cover everything from lost tax revenues and higher unemployment costs to G-M's hefty pension obligations.
Here’s my question to you: Is General Motors worth saving?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Ann from New Jersey writes:
Yes. Besides hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their jobs, we will be keeping other countries in business by purchasing their cars. The American dream is slowly dying.
John from Rohnert Park, California writes:
No. We are not buying their cars now for good reason. How would temporarily bailing them out help? We're not going to buy them next fiscal quarter either for the same reasons. They need to learn to win in the marketplace as the foreign cars are doing and sell cars that people want.
Jackie from Dallas, Texas writes:
Normally, I’d say no, let them die. However, with the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs that are tied to them, I can’t see that we can afford to let them go under. Instead, put strings on the money: accountability, no money going to executives in bonuses or perks, immediate retooling to hybrid or alternate fuel vehicles, a significant percentage going to the development of alternate fuels, and a repayment agreement.
Kerry writes:
If we can re-tool our automobile industry to compete with the rest of the world and save hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, it would be a huge mistake not to save it.
Joanne from Minnesota writes:
Absolutely not. It's throwing money down a rat hole. They need to restructure via Chapter 11, and the top executives need to be fired.
Jim from El Paso, Texas writes:
Absolutely not, Jack. The government wants to bail out all these companies to keep things going with no real plan. Who's going to bail us taxpayers out? I'm not far from heading under myself along with many others and no one is coming to our aid.
Willy from Michigan writes:
Did the world end when American Motors folded?