Congressman John Yarmuth says the country could not allow the Big three automakers to fail.

President Bush announced a measure to lend General Motors and Chrysler $17.4 billion in exchange for major concessions.

Ford did not receive any loans. The company says it can survive the economic downturn without help because of previous concessions.

Yarmuth say the loss of the auto industry could become a massive problem.

"Nobody likes this situation. Nobody like the bail out companies that aren't doing well. But we're at a very fragile economic situation right now. There's no way that we could have allowed the auto industry to fail and cost us literally hundreds of thousands of jobs when unemployment is already so bad. It would have been a debilitating economic blow," said Yarmuth.

GM and Chrysler have until the end of March to produce a long-term probability plan.