Why Are Automobile Dealerships Being Closed?

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to express confusion and concern. For much of the week, I have tried to find an answer to the question about why automobile dealerships across the country are being closed. I thought maybe this week I would return to Washington, D.C., and find the solution, that someone would know and provide an explanation. I cannot understand how closing automobile dealerships, those who sell automobiles, is advantageous to the bottom line, the profit of General Motors or Chrysler. This can't be a market-based decision. There must be some political consideration that is ongoing to encourage these dealerships to be closed.

The closing of those dealerships is devastating to communities as well as the businesses that we are closing, and at the same time provide no economic improvement in the bottom line of our automobile manufacturers.

So, Mr. Speaker, I again ask those of my colleagues and those at the White House, the automobile task force, is it a political consideration that is occurring to encourage General Motors and Chrysler to disenfranchise their franchisees or is there some market-based decision on which this is based? And yet no one can provide that answer.

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