We should have just let the US fail and let some other country take over.

1) Other countries tried *cough Japan*
2) it was a world-wide economic down-turn & because of the death toll from WWI, few countries were in a position to wage war.
3) Like other countries, we were considering major political upheaval. Remember the Hollywood Blacklist & McCarthyism? These came about because our country was considering allowing another form of government to take over.

We should have fired the president, closed congress

We fired Hoover (who became the scape goat), and hired Roosevelt. The 1930 & 1932 elections rotated congress from Republican to Democratic in the house and senate respectively.

Instead the "Government" provied jobs and other ways for people to survive.  So that means the Tax payers had to provide the money for those new jobs and services...

It's called socialism, and it didn't work. The "New Deal" packaged several new ideas (almost all socialist) to stimulate the ecomomy. It was a monumental failure, and did nothing to halt the stagnation of the ecomomy - let alone stimulate it. "The Second New Deal" was an even bigger failure, and was creating HUGE national debt. It was nearly the nail in our nations coffin - the only thing that saved us was WWII & nature started co-operating again (no more dust bowl = farmers could produce crops again).

A lot of what happen was good and some things were bad.

Such as?

At least they tried and didn't give up and are still a country today.

Much of their "trying" actually did more to hurt the economy, and arguably would have led to the collapse of the Republic we have today.

If we let the Big 3 fail we will be handing the country over to another.  We will be solely dependent on foreign produced/controlled vehicles.

We're already dependent on foreign produced goods. It's a world economy. Your vehicle likely has parts from a dozen different countries. Even foreign vehicles (especially Toyota's) are made largely from US raw materials.

Where is your evidence of this? I think there are other possibilities. Someone could get some private funding together, buy out GM or Ford, re-tool them & hire a better management / engineering team. Or, maybe someone else comes in and starts over from the ground up? In any case - we've been bailing out the US auto industry since the 70's. They continue to produce crap vehicles that don't sell. It's simple really, if you reward an outcome, you're more likely to get that same outcome. If you subsidize inferior engineering & marketing, you'll tend to get more of it. Innovation & the free market nearly always wins. It's just plain better equipped to succeed.

If innovation & "free market"(!) nearly always wins, how are the japanese winning?
  Simple, THEY are government subsidized.
  Heard a good one on the radio today, it goes like this: Not only are the big 3 almost about to go under, their suppliers are too! Uh- Oh! Guess what? These same suppliers supply foreign car makers (they mentioned toyota). These outside suppliers would also be drug under if any of the big three go under! So guess who's jumped on the "c'mon, give 'em the loan!" bandwagon? Everyone! (especially those who's pockets won't be affected!)
 It seems as tho ALL car companies are so inter-connected some way or another.  If you hurt GM, you hurt everybody. Wonder why? Could it be innovation? It definetely ain't a free market! Hurt a foreign carmaker, nuthin happens. So, who wins?
  On another subject, does anyone know where I can get some Chinese Language lessons?

It seems as tho ALL car companies are so inter-connected some way or another.

One of my previous companies did a lot of consulting work in the auto industry.  We had a world map that showed all the current automotive companies and who owned part of them/who they were connected to.

That was a lot of criss-crossing lines...

I'm just glad that the goverment is diligent with enforcement of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which amoung other things, was meant to prevent any company from becoming so large that it could coherece special treatment from the govenment.

In other words, it was passed to prevent any company from becoming so large that its failure would have enormous negative impact on the government and/or the nation's economy.

Funny, I hear a lot of "too big to fail" talk coming from the very folks who are supposed to prevent that from happening in the first place.

'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'

Thomas Jefferson 1802

Jeremiah, ever the scientist, you know I respect your intellect  ..... However, have you ever heard of the "V.A.T."? Value Added Taxes.  It allows for ,say, a $20,000 American car to be sold in Germany for $25,792 and a $20,000 German car to be sold here for $17,885 !! This VAT disparity is reliably estimated to place an extra $290 billion burden on American manufactured goods and $85 billion on U.S. services. Roughly half our yearly trade deficit.  There is more info here:
http://www.freep.com/article/20081210/OPINION01/812100354/1069/OPINION
    Another example of the root cause of our auto industry's problems. NOT product line or quality, it's economic policy....AGAIN!
    Like this and many other programs, anybody can "get it". From a scientist to a ditch digger. It just takes the scientist a lot longer!