It's an auto-finance company! No, it's a bank holding company! Wait. It's both—and it is yet another company getting a handout from Washington.

G.M.A.C. will get $6 billion from Washington: The Treasury is buying $5 billion in senior preferred shares that pay an 8 percent dividend from G.M.A.C., and will lend it another $1 billion. The money is aimed at keeping G.M.A.C. able to lend to car buyers, thus contributing to the lifeline for General Motors, which before the government investment owned 49 percent of G.M.A.C. The private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, which owns Chrysler, owned 51 percent before the Treasury stake. G.M. and Chrysler are receiving $13.4 billion from Washington, and ensuring that that money is not being spent in vain is the main reason for propping up G.M.A.C.

It has been overused phrase during the financial crisis, but it can truly said of G.M.A.C. that it has suffered a perfect storm: Its auto-financing business has been hammered by the plunge in auto sales, its mortgage business has virtually collapsed in the housing slump, and it is struggling with is own debt in the financial crisis. Add to that its controlling stake by a private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, and you have a formula for trouble with a capital T, and that doesn't necessarily stand for TARP.

Indeed, the money going to G.M.A.C., as the Wall Street Journal notes, raises the question about whether the government's rescue of Detroit could become open-ended. The Journal notes that Treasury has set up a separate program within the $700 billion TARP, which was intended for financial institutions, one that does not have a specific dollar limit.

The agreement with Treasury comes amid some confusion over whether G.M.A.C. has achieved its goal of swapping at least 75 percent of some $38 billion in debt. The swap was aimed at reducing its debt load so that it could qualify as a bank holding company. Ahead of a deadline last Friday, the company had about 60 percent tendered. So did the government make an exception for G.M.A.C.?

In any case, Felix Salmon points out that the holdouts in the swap now have reason to feel "pretty smug" about their decision: Their G.M.A.C. debt is senior to the preferred equity that Treasury is buying.