GM’s CEO, Ed Whitcare, has a op-ed in today’s WSJ on the news that GM is paying back their bailout loans (behind the paywall):

Today, General Motors is announcing that it has made a payment of $5.8 billion to the U.S. Treasury and Export Development Canada. We’re paying back — in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule — loans made to help fund the new GM.
Our ability to pay back these loans less than a year after emerging from bankruptcy is a sign that our plan for building a new GM is working. It is also an important step toward eventually reducing the amount of equity the governments of the U.S., Canada and Ontario hold in our company. Combined, these governments hold a majority of GM’s equity, and we want citizens to know how their governments’ money is being put to work.
Following the initial crisis and the bankruptcy of the old GM last year, a new GM has emerged as a leaner, stronger company. We have eight new members on our 13-member board of directors. Twelve of the top 13 senior leaders are new to GM (from places outside the industry such as Microsoft and AT&T) or in new jobs at the company. You can feel a renewed energy and commitment at GM. Our new vehicles are generating sales, and these sales are allowing us to make investments and create jobs.

Before everyone on the Left starts doing the cha-cha to celebrate, when do taxpayers get the other $50 billion or so back, as we still own 60 percent of GM?

The company has begun to repay $8.4 billion in government loans from the United States and Canada. But most of the U.S. investment in GM can be recovered only when the government’s equity stake is sold.
That sale, Liddell said, will happen only when the company and the market are ready.
Turning a profit is “the most important foundation” to be set before the company’s shares are sold to the public, Liddell said.