Obama urges help for homeowners, auto industry

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama said struggling U.S. automakers need a government rescue, but help should be conditioned upon changes in the industry, according to excerpts from a TV interview to air on Sunday.

He also urged more assistance for troubled homeowners and added that he is offering the Bush administration occasional advice on handling the worst U.S. financial crisis in decades.

"If we don't have a clear, focused program for homeowners by the time I take office, we will after I take office," Obama told the CBS television network's 60 Minutes news program, according to a written summary of the interview.

The president-elect, who takes over from President George W. Bush on January 20, said he would announce his Cabinet selections soon and plans to include a Republican on his team, according to CBS.

Obama said the federal government has not focused adequately on aiding homeowners slammed by a nationwide wave of foreclosures stemming from a steep housing market decline that has thrown the world financial system into disarray.

Critics of the Bush administration have said it is spending too much time and money trying to rescue ailing banks and credit markets, with mixed results, and not enough to help homeowners refinance their way out of unmanageable mortgages.

"We've got to ... set up a negotiation between banks and borrowers so that people can stay in their homes. That is going to have an impact on the economy as a whole," Obama said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is managing a $700 billion bank bailout that has shifted its focus since it was approved by Congress early last month.

"Henry Paulson has worked tirelessly under some very difficult circumstances," Obama said.

"I think Hank would be the first one to acknowledge that probably not everything that's been done has worked the way he had hoped it would work."

A member of the Obama transition team is in daily communication with Paulson, he added.

"We are getting the information that's required and we're making suggestions in some circumstances about how we think they might approach some of these problems," he said.

The automakers need assistance, he said, but he added that it should be conditioned on "labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all of the stakeholders coming together with a plan: What does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?"

He said any help to the industry should be "a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere."

(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh and Caren Bohan; editing by Todd Eastham)