Did Government Buying Boost GM's Sales To Make Obama Look Good?

Last quarter, General Motors (GM) sales were reported being up by a whopping 16%; making Obama's "masterminding" of the GM bailout look like a miraculous turnaround for a company that had almost gone belly up.  And, of course, Obama has taken every opportunity to promote GM's success story as his own; while on the campaign trail. In fact, last week's three-day bus tour through Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania was dedicated to doing just that.

But, if you drill down into that 16% increase in sales, you would find that the federal government's fleet purchases of GM autos actually rose by an extraordinary 79% in June; just days before the second quarter sales numbers would be tallied.  How convenient that was for his bus tour and for this supposedly "most transparent" president in the history of the United States!

Fleet Sales data source: http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/07/05/gm%E2%80%99s-government-sales-and-truck-inventory-rise

Bus tour story: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120705/AUTO01/207050337/1121/auto01/Obama-bus-tour-to-tout-car-sales