obtain from gm and from the federal regulators. a sense that there was a lot of information here that was foreseeable, understandable at the time that was not being properly shared. today we just learned from democrats on the committee that they found 133 examples of when consumers went to their gm dealer, had a problem with their car that they reported as having something to do with the ignition, even if they didn t use those words exactly, and understanding the car suddenly shut off. and in those 133 cases identified now, none was reported up the chain. so there were lots of instances where there was knowledge that wasn t acted on and also murphy told me references to business cases, which he said without drawing any conclusions does that mean there were financial considerations at the time about what would be done. we know that there were cases in depositions where people who worked in the process along the way said that they were not aware of things. later there s documents to refu
paid a lot less for them. and i m wondering where you think the culpability lies in terms of regulators. there is an agency charged with regulating commerce in this way. give me what you think the balance is in terms of the regulators responsibility to find out what was going on and gm s responsibility to be forth coming. i think the primary thing, every corporation has certainly a corporation as large and as powerful as general motors is really given the public s trust. and they come out and they hold themselves out as these paragons of american culture. the u.s. car culture for all these years has been such an important thing. and i think that the ultimate responsibility for what happened here lies with the company, general motors. and i think here even more so when u.s. taxpayers paid lots of money to help them out in a time of need, for the company to have been lying to the american
that this doesn t happen. well, senator, you have a lot of talk from your colleagues on the other side of the aisle about overregulation of american business and then you re bringing up i think rightly this question of whether or not the regulators charged with protecting millions of consumers when it comes to auto safety were on the job. obviously there was a different mindset toward regulation in the previous administration. but are you saying that that same attitude toward regulating industry has been carried over or that there was a substantive difference between the attitude of regulators in the previous administration and the current one? well, we re going to find out. and there is no excuse. regulation is for the purpose of the safety of the public, and tragically 12 lives, at least 12 have been lost. does this situation with general motors, as tragic as it is, does this undermine the case that your colleagues on the other side of the aisle are constantly making about our
senator, i understand there is you know, you have the hearing today, your going to have hearings tomorrow on the senate side, what congressional action is possible here or is this really more about fact finding on behalf of the american people, who again were investors in gm? well, it s legitimate fact finding. the net amount that we spent in the bailout is over $10 billion. that s taxpayer money. but more than that, what we want to know, what are they going to do about it to get the problem solved? and then the next question is why wasn t the regulator back there in 2004, johnny on the spot doing this? i can tell you, because we had other regulators back in that period of time that were not doing their job on safety at all. and then once we talk about the regulators back then, what about the present administration and why aren t the regulators in this present administration right there cracking the whip so