This should have been what happened in the first place:

President Barack Obama believes a quick, negotiated bankruptcy is the most likely way for General Motors Corp. to restructure and become a competitive automaker, people familiar with the matter said.

Obama also is prepared to let Chrysler LLC go bankrupt and be sold off piecemeal if the third-largest U.S. automaker can’t form an alliance with Fiat SpA, said members of Congress who were briefed on the GM and Chrysler situation before the president said two days ago that the automakers’ viability plans were insufficient.

Rather than throw BILLIONS at these companies to keep them afloat, our government should have let nature take its course. If that meant these companies would have to file for bankruptcy, so be it. These companies have issues, and the only way to solve those problems is for them to restructure and retool their businesses. By stepping in the way it did, government got in the way of what would have been a short, although painful, restructuring.

Filing for bankruptcy doesn’t mean it’s all over for a person or a business, you know. Many companies have done it, as have many people, and they are still around. Yes, it damages credit and reputations for a period of time, but recovery in some form or another usually comes. And when it does, the person or company is usually — but not always — wiser for it. They certainly try to avoid making the same mistakes. For big businesses like GM, that means trimming the fat, getting costs under control, producing a product people want to buy, etc. And taxpayers wouldn’t be shelling out a ton of money and running up the national debt to unpayable proportions.