While the $3 billion “Cash for Clunkers” blockbuster is over, Congress is not finished with Detroit.

No one is talking about a “Return of Clunker” or “Son of Clunker” sequel, but it still looks as if car companies will renew their part in the congressional agenda even as another humongous production — healthcare — threatens to swallow the Capitol whole.

A priority for Democrats everywhere is to push the benefits of economic stimulus and pound the podium on job creation. Thursday, the focus is on the future of manufacturing in the economically hard-hit Midwest — a battleground in any election scenario.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will travel to Michigan to discuss legislation working its way through the chamber that would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to help spur development of advanced technology vehicles - like better hybrids and all-electric cars.

A fellow Democrat who is the driving force behind the bill, Representative Gary Peters, will join Hoyer and auto and supplier execs at a late-afternoon news conference in Troy. Peters’ district includes facilities operated by Chrysler and General Motors — both of which have cut tens of thousands of jobs and are trying to find their way after bankruptcy.

The Obama administration and fellow Democrats in Congress have pushed for billions in battery development and other projects this year to jump-start a new generation of fuel efficient vehicles and plant seeds for a “green” economy in Michigan, Ohio and other states where traditional manufacturing jobs have disappeared.

Photo credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook (crushed vehicles to be shipped to the shredder in Detroit)

Detroit CEOs drive their hybrid cars over to the House of Representatives for another serving of humble pie this morning. But it’s still not clear if they’ll get the $34 billion bailout they’re looking for, as several senators remained skeptical after yesterday’s testimony on that side of the Capitol. 
     
Testimony before the House Financial Services Committee begins at 9:30 a.m. 

     
The last outstanding Senate race may finally reach a resolution today, as Minnesota could complete its recount in the contest between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. 

But any resolution will be preliminary: there are still about 6,000 ballots that have been challenged and will need further review.

     
The Supreme Court will announce what cases it will hear for the year. 
     
The Drug Enforcement Administration has built its own meth lab! The drug-fighting agency holds a ceremony to dedicate its new facility “that will enable DEA chemists to teach students how to synthesize controlled substances, and conduct research into illicit manufacturing methods.” No word on what they do with the final product. 
    
And somewhere over the Pacific, the Pentagon will test its “Star Wars” ballistic missile defense system this afternoon.

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts (Auto CEOs on Capitol Hill)

REUTERS/Eric Miller (Franken, Coleman at campaign appearances)

They’re back, and this time they didn’t take the corporate jet. CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler will try again to wrangle billions of dollars in bailout money from Congress. This time, they drove from Detroit and they can explain they would do with the money. But they’ve also upped their request from $25 billion to $34 billion.
    
Testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee begins at 10 a.m.
    
The Labor Department will issue its weekly jobless claims report, and it’s not expected to be pretty. The numbers come out at 8:30 a.m. Futures markets point to a lower opening for U.S. stocks after drugmaker Merck offered a disappointing 2009 profit outlook.
    
Some of the government’s top financial officials speak today. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke talks about housing at 11:15, while Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair speaks at a consumer conference at 8:30 a.m.

President-elect Barack Obama has no public events today.
 

Remember George W. Bush? Yes, he’s still president. He lights the National Christmas Tree in front of the White House at 5 p.m.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Auto company CEOs testify in Congress)
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (National Christmas tree arrives at the White House)

President-elect Barack Obama will continue to fill out his Team of Rivals when he names New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary at a press conference scheduled for 11:40 a.m. EST For those of you keeping score at home, that means at least three members of his administration will be former Democratic presidential candidates – Richardson, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and Secretary of State pick Hillary Clinton. 
     
We can’t wait to see what he has in mind for Dennis Kucinich. 
     
On the Hill, lawmakers will continue to weigh U.S. automakers’ restructuring proposals ahead of hearings later this week. The heads of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, chastened from their skeptical reception last month, are driving from Detroit this time — and they’re confident they’ll get here in good shape. 
     
“Our cars don’t have car trouble,” GM president Fritz Henderson said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” 

Chrysler officials hold a rally at a dealership in suburban New Carollton, Maryland, to build support for the bailout at 11:30 a.m. 
     
Bigwigs from Honda and Toyota are in town, too. But they’re not here to beg for cash — they’re talking about electric cars and other sustainable technologies at the Convention Center. 
      
Just how bad is this recession? We’ll know more at 2 p.m., when the Fed Releases its “Beige Book,” an antecdotal survey of economic conditions nationwide. 
    
Wall Street doesn’t need more gloomy evidence. Stocks are expected to open lower after Research in Motion, the folks who make the Blackberry, slashed their outlook and mining giant Freeport-McMoRan suspended its divident payments and slashed copper output.

REUTERS/Richard Clement (Richardson and Obama at campaign rally)

REUTERS/Fred Prouser (GM logo at LA auto show)

Congress is taking a hard look at Detroit’s autos these days. But what about Detroit’s jets?

When the chief executives of Ford and General Motors flew in to Washington yesterday to ask Congress for a $25 billion lifeline, they didn’t fly coach.

General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner arrived on his company’s cushy Gulfstream IV, ABC News reported. Ford CEO Alan Mulally flew in on a private company jet as well.

It costs about $20,000 to fly one of these jets round trip from Detroit to Chicago — far more than the $900 cost of a first-class ticket on Northwest Airlines, ABC said.

Wagoner told ABC he took the private jet because he’s a busy guy. Mulally declined to comment.

It’s not exactly news that corporate fat cats prefer to fly in style. And assuming all eight seats on the G4 were taken, the private jet only cost about $13,000 more than flying commercial.

But it might not be the best move by Big Auto as it tries to convince Congress that a $25 billion bailout would be money well spent. The two have already been criticized for their generous pay packages ($22 million for Mulally in 2007, $15.7 million for Wagoner).

What do you think? Is this a tempest in a teapot, or further evidence of Detroit’s poor business practices?

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Auto industry leaders testify in Senate on Nov. 18)

Chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, along with the head of the United Autoworkers union, will testify to Congress today about the need for a bailout of their struggling companies.

“It’s going to be really neat to be able to explain and talk about the progress we’ve made,” Ford CEO Alan Mullaly said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
    
But Mullaly and his fellow auto-industry bigwigs could be in for a bumpy ride. Detroit’s clout on Capitol Hill has diminished in recent years as automakers have closed plants across the country and lobbied heavily against increases in fuel efficiency, the New York Times reports. Cushy union contracts and multimillion-dollar paychecks for executives probably won’t help win over public support, either.
    
Testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee begins at 3 p.m. EST.
    
Speaking of bailouts, what’s happening to that $700 billion earmarked for the financial services industry? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m.
    
And it’s reckoning time for Connecticut Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. The 2000 Democratic vice-presidential nominee could lose control of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee as payback for supporting Republican John McCain in the presidential race when Senate Democrats hold leadership elections.
    
President-elect Barack Obama holds no public events today as he continues to assemble his administration from Chicago.
    
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will name baseball slugger Ken Griffey Jr. as a “public diplomacy envoy” who will travel the world to help improve the U.S. image abroad. Junior’s been hobbled by injuries over the past decade, but he’s been untainted by the steroids scandal that has snared more productive stars like Barry Bonds.
    
Stocks are expected to open lower on fears that the economic slump is worsening. The National Association of Realtors releases home-sale data at 10 a.m., and the Labor Department should provide a snapshot of inflation when it releases the Producer Price Index at 8:30 a.m.
    
And if you want to see Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rub elbows with professional wrestler Bret Hart, head on over to the National Press Club’s book fair at 5:30 p.m.

The Senate returns to debate a bailout for struggling automakers and consider additional stimulus money to prop up the struggling economy.
    
Democrats hope to pass both measures in their brief “lame duck” session, but they face opposition from Republicans in the chamber as well as President George W. Bush, who reiterated on Monday morning that any Detroit aid should come from the $700 billion already appropriated to prop up the economy.
    
In Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama will meet at noon EST with John McCain, his recent rival for the White House.  “It’s well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality,” Obama’s transition team said on Monday. 
    
Obama and McCain will be joined by their two favorite wingmen — future White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, respectively.
    
McCain might put in a good word for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is reported to be on Obama’s short list for Secretary of State. McCain and Clinton downed vodka shots together on a trip to Estonia a few years back.
    
 Back in the Senate, the Finance Committee will cross-examine the man who has been nominated to oversee the $700 billion bailout program. Neil Barofsky, the assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York who has been nominated to be Special Inspector General of the Treasury Department’s Troubled Assets Relief Program, testifies at 2 p.m.
    
The House is not in session, but new members elected two weeks ago are in town for an orientation session and a class photo. House Democratic leaders say they will quickly pass any bailout packages that clear the Senate.
    
U.S. stocks are expected to open lower as investors continue to fear a deep and lengthy global recession. According to one group of economists, we’re already there: real GDP is expected to fall 2.6 percent in the final quarter of this year and 1.3 percent in the first three months of 2009, according to a survey of 50 professional forecasters conducted by the National Association of Business Economists.

DETROIT - No stranger to criticism of the U.S. auto industry, Barack Obama made it personal this week when he singled out his candidate for Detroit’s “worst car” ever: the 1970s-era Ford Granada.

The cutting comment came in an interview with an Indiana radio station and then was picked up by the Detroit News, seized on as a talking point for Detroit radio and stirring debate in Internet chat rooms as of Wednesday.

Obama said he had learned to drive first on his grandfather’s Ford Granada, a boxy, big-engined sedan that Ford once tried to market as a kind of Everyman’s Mercedes-Benz.

The Illinois senator did not remember it so fondly.

“It may be the worst car that Detroit ever built. This thing was a tin can. It was during the ’70s when oil had just gone up so they were trying to compete with the Japanese. They wanted to keep the cars big, so they made them out of tin foil,” he was quoted as saying. “It would rattle and shake. You basically couldn’t go over 80 (miles per hour) without the thing getting out of control.”

Fans of the Granada, which made a cameo in last year’s Academy Award-winning drama “No Country for Old Men,” rushed to the defense of a car killed with little fanfare 25 years ago.

“I’m a Barack voter but I disagree with him on the Granada,” said Jesse Sweigart, a 32-year-old computer engineer in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

Sweigart said his 31-year-old Ford Granada, bought on a whim for $400 over a year ago, runs like a dream and gets better gas mileage than his newer Dodge truck. “They really put things together back then,” he said.

Tom Peterson, another enthusiast, said Obama was wrong to suggest the big Ford featured flimsy “tin foil” since it was a heavyweight in its late 1970s heyday. “If Obama actually said this, it sounds like (a) politician gum-flapping based on no knowledge,” he said.

“Here comes Granadagate,” wrote one Web poster. “We should invite Barack to drive a couple of our rides. Time heals all wounds.”

Sweigart offered to let Obama take a spin down memory land if the presidential campaign takes him back to Pennsylvania.

“I think if he got behind the wheel it would all come back,” he said. “I’d be happy to give him a ride to the next state.”

In the meantime, Obama may have some damage control ahead with voters in Michigan’s still auto-heavy economy. The Michigan Democratic delegation remains in play ahead of the party convention in August, and polls show Republican John McCain as a strong challenger to Obama in a prospective match-up in the 8th most populous state.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Ellen Ozier (U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks to supporters at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh)