In laying the groundwork for bankruptcy on Monday, President Obama said auto-industry viability will require hard choices from all parties. It will, he said, “require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who have already made extraordinarily painful concessions to do more. It’ll require creditors to recognize that they can’t hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts. It will require efforts from a whole host of other stakeholders, including dealers and suppliers.” Everyone, that is, except the U.S. government itself.

Federal fuel-mileage rules (so-called CAFE standards) — which force automakers to make cars that consumers don’t buy, kill hundreds every year by forcing lighter vehicles, and disproportionately impact U.S. automakers and their fleet mix of larger vehicle — will not only remain intact, but will continue to rise. The cost to automakers? An estimated $85 billion over the next ten years.

Obama’s task force even acknowledges the damage the feds’ hidden, backdoor regulation will do in this graph buried in its report:

Absent the successful introduction of a number of new-generation nameplates (which the task force pans as unworkable elsewhere in its report because they are money-losers). . . GM’s product portfolio is more vulnerable to CAFE standard increases than the portfolios of many of its competitors. Many of its products fail to meet the minimum threshold on fuel economy and rank in the bottom quartile of fuel economy achievement.

Somehow, this is GM’s problem rather than a Congressional problem!

Tossing the federal government’s arbitrary CAFE standards would relieve GM of billions in unnecessary costs. “If each are willing to do their part,” said Obama, “then this restructuring. . . will mark not an end, but a new beginning for a great American industry.”

If only Americans knew how disingenuous that statement is.