U.S. & World News

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― A top General Motors executive repeated claims Wednesday that the auto giant may not make it to New Year's Day if Congress doesn't approve a federal bailout for the beleaguered industry.

"That's what we believe we need in order to run our business through the month of December," said GM's chief operating officer Fritz Henderson on CBS' The Early Show.

"We've seen … not only continued pressure in our business but the pace of deterioration has accelerated. October and November were just the worst levels we've seen post-World War II."

Henderson said Tuesday that "there isn't a Plan B," for General Motors if Congress doesn't act.

Congressional leaders are reviewing three separate survival plans from General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. as they weigh whether to call lawmakers back to Washington for a special session next week to vote on an auto bailout.

Henderson said GM acknowledges the need to "size our company much differently," if it hopes to stay viable in a hostile economic environment that has seen a precipitous drop in car sales.

"We developed a plan that would allow us to be robust and pay back the loans, even with a very difficult set of economic assumptions," said Henderson.

President-elect Barack Obama says it appears that the heads of the Big Three automakers are coming back to Congress with a "more serious set of plans" for how their companies are going to survive.

Obama says he's reserving comment until he sees what the automakers propose during hearings tomorrow and Friday.

He said again that Congress was right last month to refuse to provide a bailout until the companies offered a clear plan for long-term viability.

Obama wouldn't offer an opinion on whether the bailout money should come from assistance packages already approved by Congress. He said he's more interested in seeing whether there's a "sound plan" in place.

In blueprints delivered to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, both GM and Chrysler said they needed an immediate infusion of government cash to last through December, and both said they could drag the entire industry down if they fail. Ford is requesting a $9 billion "standby line of credit" that it says it doesn't expect to use unless one of the other Big Three goes belly up.

But Chrysler said it needed $7 billion by year's end just to keep running. And GM asked for an immediate $4 billion as the first installment of a $12 billion loan, plus a $6 billion line of credit it might need if economic conditions worsen. The two painted the direst portraits to date - including the prospects of shuttered factories and massive job losses - of what could happen if Congress doesn't quickly step in.

Democratic leaders voiced concern and a desire to do something to avert an automaker collapse, but they made no commitments about helping an industry that's made few friends lately on Capitol Hill.

"It is my hope that we would" pass legislation to help the automakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would lay the groundwork Monday for a possible vote on an auto bailout measure.

In their first round of pleas for a government rescue last month, the Big Three executives arrived in Washington on separate private jets and enraged lawmakers who said they failed to take responsibility for their companies' troubles or justify a federal bailout.

"I think we learned a lot from that experience," Ford CEO Alan Mulally said.

He, as well as GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Chrysler chief Bob Nardelli, are all road-tripping the 520 miles from Detroit to Washington in fuel-efficient hybrid cars for hearings on Thursday and Friday.

Mulally and Wagoner both said they'd work for $1 a year - something Chrysler's plan said Nardelli already does - if their firms took any government loan money. Ford offered to cancel management bonuses and salaried employees' merit raises next year, and GM said it would slash top executives' pay. Ford and GM both said they would sell their corporate aircraft.

All three plans envision the government getting a stake in the auto companies that would allow taxpayers to share in future gains if they recover.

However, the a government bailout isn't the only thing the auto industry needs to remain viable, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds.

"All of this isn't really going to work without getting some kind of flexibility from the UAW," Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst at Global Insight, told CBS News. "The reality of the situation is these companies could go bankrupt and then the union is powerless, so they have to give concessions."

Leaders of the United Auto Workers were also discussing further concessions at an emergency meeting in Detroit on Wednesday. Under consideration were the possibility of scrapping a much-maligned jobs bank in which laid-off workers keep receiving most of their pay and postponing the automakers' payments into a multibillion-dollar union-administered health care fund.

Still, an auto bailout remains a tough sell on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the mood in Congress "candidly is not supportive" of the automakers, although he called the consequences of just one of them failing "cataclysmic."

"Two of the Big Three say they cannot survive until the end of the year and if one or more goes down, all three go down," Specter said at a round-table discussion in Philadelphia.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the automakers still need to prove they can survive and be profitable. "If these companies are asking for taxpayer dollars, they must convince Congress that they are going to shape up and change their ways," Dodd said in a statement.

His panel is to hear testimony Thursday from the auto executives, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger, and the head of the Government Accountability Office on the companies' plans.

The House Financial Services Committee is to hold a similar session on Friday.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)