by Laura Conaway

In an interview Wednesday on Morning Edition, Rep. Barney Frank argued that the U.S. should bail out the auto industry. Frank said it would be biased to throw a golden lifeline to an insurer like AIG, but leave automobile workers to sink. Congress heard pleas for help from the Big Three auto makers this week, but deadlocked on an aid plan. (UPDATE: Democratic lawmakers say they'll take the issue up in December, if industry leaders present a plan by Dec. 2.)

Today, a listener named Jennifer asks whether the auto industry is less important to the nation's economic health than the financial industry. Dan Costello ran down the numbers yesterday. As for the rest, I'll let Jennifer start us off:

Lawmakers seem very reluctant to bail out the auto industry. They were not very hesitant to bail out banks and investment firms, though. I'm wondering, why this difference? . . . Part of me even wondered if it was a classist issue. Millions of jobs would be affected directly or indirectly by an auto industry collapse, but many of them are blue collar jobs. (Certainly white collar jobs would be affected too, of course, but there aren't many blue collar jobs in the banking industry!)

You?