On Wednesday December 3rd 2008 a rally was held to support General Motors Fort Wayne Assembly. Over 200 employees, retirees, supplier and dealership representatives attend in a show of support. The rally was held for an hour on the sidewalk outside of the Federal building at 1300 south Harrison in Fort Wayne. That building houses the district offices of Congressman Mark Souder and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana. Neither leader was present at the rally, but many of the rally faithful went up to their respective reps office to voice their support for a loan to the big 3 automakers.

If GM is not able to get the support needed to secure a loan and produce financial liquidity for the near term, they will more than likely cease operations in early 2009. If GM stopped building trucks in Allen County there are some numbers to think about:

GM Fort Wayne Assembly would stop paying 2 million in property taxes and 2.4 million on equipment taxes.

Loss of county and state taxes paid; 1 year loss for COIT $1.6 million, 1 year loss for CEDIT $2.3 million, 1 year loss to state income tax revenues $23 million.

Allen County unemployment rate would increase to 12.6% from its current rate of 6.5%.

Including indirect labor tied to the automotive industry over 24,000 NE Indiana citizens would be unemployed, 3,000 of those directly tied to GM Fort Wayne Assembly.

Big 3 dealerships, parts suppliers, railroad, trucking, advertising and service employees are included in that group of 24,000.

The Big 3 produce $21.1 billion in Social Security contributions from employees.

$24.7 billion is paid in personal taxes by Big 3 automaker employees.

$12 billion in Research and Development is spent in the US annually by the Big 3.

The Big 3 spend $156 billion in purchased parts, materials and services each year.

If the Big 3 stopped working 105 assembly and component plants in 20 states would stop working raising the nation’s unemployment rate to double digits, compounding the problems of already overburdened state resources.