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Using TARP is probably a better idea all around. It's pretty much an "all use" fund and it's a better idea that throwing the money at the just as incompetent fools on Wall Street.
As for the "high" benefits UAW workers receive: The only reason those benefits could be hurting the Big Three is because Toyota/BMW/Mercedes don't have those benefits in their home countries; Japan and Europe are civilized enough to have universal healthcare for their citizens while, in the US of A, we force companies and/or employees to fend for themselves in a vicious and overpriced market-based healthcare system.
Further, the workers at the Toyota/etc. plants in Alabama are substantially worse off than their contemporaries in Michigan Big Three plants because they get cheap or no benefits, don't have a government backstop, and their "right to work" states (what a freaking Orwellian term) won't allow them to collectively negotiate for better healthcare (or a collective voice, for that matter, in anything). The Alabama state government abides with this raping of their citizens so that the politicians -- such as the arse Shelby -- can line their campaign coffers with Toyota money.
