Congressional leaders were forced to admit by week's end that any effort to assist the floundering American automotive industry, in particular General Motors, which seems poised on the brink of bankruptcy, may be overwhelmed in a lame duck session by Republican opposition.

While Democratic lawmakers hoped for a package including stimulus measures like public works projects, expanded job benefits, increased food stamps, and state aid for Medicaid expenses, it appears such measures may have to wait until President-elect Barak Obama is inaugurated in January.

President Bush does not favor an auto industry bailout and some Republicans, like Richard C. Shelby, the senior Republican on the banking committee, seem prepared to let the companies fail. In a statement Shelby said, "The financial straits that the Big Three find themselves in is not the product of our current economic downturn, but instead is the legacy of the uncompetitive structure of its manufacturing and labor force. The financial situation facing the Big Three is not a national problem but their problem."

With General Motors sitting on a cash reserve of less than $16 billion while burning through $2 billion a month, many fear the world's largest automaker will go under before year's end. The company was particularly hard hit in October when the industry as a whole saw a decline of 45 percent over 2007.

The Detroit Big Three and United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger continue to lobby in Washington for access to part of the existing $700 billion bailout for the financial sector, but with the Bush White House opposed to the move and Congressional Republicans set on obstructionism, the auto execs have made little leeway.