Remember the saying, "What’s good for America is good for General Motors"? This week, that notion will be put to the test as the heads of the Detroit automakers, each under extreme financial distress, sinking stock prices and showrooms full of cars that nobody is buying, meet Washington’s decision-makers to defend their request for $25 billion in bridge loans.

General Motors CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr., Ford (F) CEO Alan Mulally and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli, as well as United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, are scheduled to be heard in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, November 18, and the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, November 19. 

To help influence popular opinion, General Motors, which has claimed it will run out of cash by the end of the year, released a video on YouTube that uses words and images to describe a devastating ripple effect on the rest of the country if the Detroit auto industry was allowed to go under.