I am a son of Detroit. I was born in Harper Hospital and lived in the city until my family moved to Oakland County. 
 
 I grew up drinking Vernors and watching ballgames at Michigan & Trumbull. Cars got in my bones early. And not just any cars, American cars. 
 
 When the president of American Motors died suddenly in 1954, my dad, George Romney, was asked to take his place. I was 7 and got my love of cars and chrome and fins and roaring motors from him. I grew up around the industry and watched it flourish. Years later, I watched with sadness as it floundered. 
 
 Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama's management of the American economy are evident in what he did. 
 
 Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses,Obama rewarded them. 
 
 A labor union that had contributed millions to Democrats and his election campaign was granted an ownership share of Chrysler and a major stake in GM, two flagships of the industry.The U.S. Department of Treasury — American taxpayers — was asked to become a majority stockholder of GM. And a politically connected and ethically challenged Obama-campaign contributor, the financier Steven Rattner, was asked to preside over all this as auto czar. 
 
 This was crony capitalism on a grand scale. The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better. 
 
 My view at the time — and I set it out plainly in an op-ed in the New York Times — was that "the American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing." Instead of a bailout, I favored "managed bankruptcy" as the way forward. 
 
 Managed bankruptcy may sound like a death knell. But in fact, it is a way for a troubled company to restructure itself rapidly, entering and leaving the courtroom sometimes in weeks or months instead of years, and then returning to profitable operation. 
 
 In the case of Chrysler and GM, that was precisely what the companies needed. Both were saddled with an accumulation of labor, pension, and real estate costs that made them unsustainable. Health and retirement benefits alone amounted to an extra $2,000 baked into the price of every car they produced. 
 
 Shorn of those excess costs, and shorn of the bungling management that had driven them into a deep rut, they could re-emerge as vibrant and competitive companies. Ultimately, that is what happened. The course I recommended was eventually followed. GM entered managed bankruptcy in June 2009 and exited it a month later in July. 
 
 The Chrysler timeline was similarly swift. But something else happened along the way that was truly egregious. Before the companies were allowed to enter and exit bankruptcy, the U.S. government swept in with an $85 billion sweetheart deal disguised as a rescue plan. 
 
 By the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style. 
 
 Thus, the outcome of the managed bankruptcy proceedings was dictated by the terms of the bailout. Chrysler's "secured creditors," who in the normal course of affairs should have been first in line for compensation, were given short shrift, while at the same time, the UAWs' union-boss-controlled trust fund received a 55 percent stake in the firm. 
 
 The pensions of union workers and retirees at Delphi, GM's parts supplier, were left untouched, while some 21,000 non-union salaried employees saw their pensions slashed and lost their life and health insurance. And so on and so forth across the industry. 
 
 While a lot of workers and investors got the short end of the stick, Obama's union allies — and his major campaign contributors — reaped reward upon reward, all on the taxpayer's dime. 
 
 "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," is what Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, said as the economy went into free-fall. The auto bailout is a case study of Emanuel's maxim in operation. American taxpayers have been left on the hook for billions to benefit unions and the union bosses who contributed millions to Barack Obama's election campaign. Such a state of affairs is intolerable, and as president I would not tolerate it. The Obama administration needs to act now to divest itself of its ownership position in GM. 
 
 The shares need to be sold in a responsible fashion and the proceeds turned over to the nation's taxpayers. 
 
 We should not be back on a road like the one that brought us Freddie Mac and the housing crisis. It is a road with endless hazards. It is not the American way of making cars. 
 
 The dream of the Motor City is and always has been one of ideas, innovation, enterprise, and opportunity. It started with Henry Ford and continued with visionaries like William Durant, Walter Chrysler, and the Dodge Brothers. These giants never envisioned a role for government in their business, but relied on the hard work and commitment of private individuals. 
 
 Their dream is alive in all of us who have ever called Detroit home. And with a Detroiter in the White House, that dream can be realized once again. 
 
 Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a Republican candidate for president. ||||| 
 
 President George W. Bush at the NADA Convention and Expo in Las Vegas last week. (Courtesy of NADA) 
 
 But former President George W. Bush, most annoyingly, keeps coming to Obama’s defense, saying the bailout was essential to stave off complete disaster. 
 
 He defended the move in his memoir and he popped up again last week at the Las Vegas convention of the National Automobile Dealers Association, saying he would “do it again.” 
 
 “I didn’t want there to be 21 percent unemployment,” Bush told the 22,000 attendees. “Sometimes circumstances get in the way of philosophy.” 
 
 “I said, ‘No depression.’” 
 
 In his memoir he said the move was “the only option” to avert immediate bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM and the loss of a million jobs and $150 billion in tax revenues. 
 
 So Bush, who might be able to beat Romney in Michigan’s Feb. 28 primary — Santorum leads by seven in a CNN poll -- forked over a cool $25 billion. Obama, who’s been criticized by Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler for overstating the success of the effort (the White House differs), forked over another $55 billion. 
 
 It’s unclear what the auto dealers forked over to get Bush to appear. Ex-presidents usually get six figures for these appearances. And W got a standing ovation. ||||| Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations. 
 
 The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers , said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.” 
 
 Photo 
 
 You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture. 
 
 The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat. 
 
 Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn. 
 
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 Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet. 
 
 It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers. 
 
 But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost. 
 
 The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk. 
 
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 In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.
– Three years ago, Mitt Romney wrote that President Obama should "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," instead of bailing out the struggling auto industry, in a famous New York Times column. And today? Even with the American auto industry on the rebound, Michigan's GOP primary looming on Feb. 28, and Rick Santorum breathing down his neck in the polls, Romney still thinks bankruptcy would have been better than the president's "crony capitalism," he writes in the Detroit News. "I believe that without his intervention things there would be better," he writes. Romney's big complaint with the bailout? That "secured creditors" got screwed and non-union employees had their benefits slashed while a union-controlled trust got 55% of Chrysler and the unions had their pensions saved. "It is not the American way of making cars," writes Romney. None other than former President George W. Bush is taking the opposite side in the post-mortem, saying that he was responsible for the first $25 billion bailout, and it was definitely a good thing. “I didn’t want there to be 21% unemployment,” Bush told the National Automobile Dealers Association last week, reports the Washington Post. "Sometimes circumstances get in the way of philosophy.”