It’s hard out there in Detroit.

Say you’re GM. You’d like to do a deal with Chrysler, you really would. But mergers take money these days. You’ve gotta handle plant consolidations, and layoffs, and pay a cadre of attorneys, and it’s a real mess. Your books are sullied with bad auto loans, inventory overruns, and who knows what other expenses. Word on the street is it may take a massive $15 billion from Treasury to actually see this to fruition.

One option is to check in some of those bad auto loans at the TARP. The automakers all have lending arms, GMAC could assuredly stand to get some worthless auto paper off their books. And who knows, maybe Neel Kashkari would like to go use some of that bad paper to go repo himself a 2006 Escalade to cruise around Arlington in or something.

The other option being tossed around lately is – hey – maybe the Department of Energy can cough up some money to get this deal done! Last December, Congress approved $25 billion as for Detroit to improve fuel economy standards. So over at the DOE, you can see the wheels turning where they’re thinking, you know, fuel economy, mergers and acquisitions, similar enough, right? As DOE spokeswoman Healy Baumgardner will happily let you know:

“We’re still writing the rules. To discuss time or any amount of money is speculatory and premature.”

In other words: let no loophole go unlooped, let no funding go unreleased, let no irrelevant government agency not pile on, until the auto industry is saved! Hooray!