In USA Today’s featured editorial page debate for Wednesday, February 18, the newspaper’s opinion editors asserted that the government now faces two major questions in regards to the bailout: should taxpayer dollars be handed to Detroit? And what should be done about the many retirees and their dependents who can no longer rely on Detroit to provide for their needs.

USA Today believes that President George W. Bush, in giving GM and Chrysler a lifeline for a few months and a few billon dollars, was handing his successor Barack Obama an even tougher job: deciding whether to continue what has now become the status quo of financial aid for automakers or cut the strings loose. USA Today writes, “To no one’s surprise, the automakers are back for more.”

Should the government prevent bankruptcy or rely on bankruptcy as an effective way for GM and Chrysler to restructure? Should only the weakest be allowed to fail? Are GM and Chrysler’s plans for viability “realistic and sufficient”? “President Obama’s auto task force should review the plans with an eye toward protecting taxpayers and the broader economy, not hte various stakeholders in an industry that for too long has operated too many product lines and made too many mediocre cars.” At the same time, after “years of trimming, the industry is too small to pay the legacy costs of its former, much larger, self.”

The $20 billion GM in particular has committed to providing to an employee healthcare trust is worth 15 times the current market value of the company itself ($1.3 billion). The opinion editors conclude, “The fact is, autoworkers have long had some of the most generous health benefits available to American workers, with minimal co-payments and deductibles. Retirees might have to settle for Medicare when they’re eligible, plus some sort of employer-provided Medigap policy.”

USA Today concludes that these two separate questions need to be answered one at a time.