'I would say things have been difficult already,' General Motors Corp. President Fritz Henderson said Monday at the Reuters Automotive Summit in Detroit. 'Capital markets have been quite difficult, and this is just going to make it more so. We're in for some rough waters here at least for this week, if not the next couple of months.' 'It's going to be tough'Even a welcome $5 slide in the price of oil to roughly $95 a barrel cannot offset the seriousness of recent market gyrations and what they augur for Detroit's Big Three and for Delphi Corp.'s ability to secure financing to emerge from three years of bankruptcy. This is the last thing -- which, incidentally, was not produced here -- that Detroit needs. 'The screws just get turned harder if you want credit,' said Gerald Meyers, retired chairman of American Motors Corp. and now a business professor at the University of Michigan. 'It's going to be tough to raise money.' Except for so-called 'Triple-A rated' companies -- i.e., Toyota Motor Corp. in the auto space -- the credit markets are mostly closed. That forces companies facing 'business challenges,' as Henderson put it, to seek cash by either cutting operating costs, trimming capital budgets, paying exorbitant interest rates or securing capital from nontraditional sources like sovereign wealth funds or the government. Enter the $25 billion direct loan package Detroit is pushing on Capitol Hill. The automakers figure they still hold a few aces, according to individuals familiar with the situation: this year's presidential politics, a bipartisan desire not to be blamed for hastening the broader bankruptcy of Detroit, and the fact that the loan package was approved by Congress and the White House as part of last year's energy bill. Both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, back the loan package. So do the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the United Auto Workers, Republicans and Democrats from key states. And President Bush signed the legislation that included the loan framework, if not the funding to get it going. Big 3 makes the big push'If we weren't this far along, I think it would hurt us,' says a ranking Detroit executive familiar with the situation. 'It is just moving fast. This is lightning pace for Congress in September,' two months before an election. All the more reason for Detroit's heavyweights to press their position in Washington. Ford Motor Co.'s Bill Ford Jr., executive chairman, is set to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this afternoon and General Motors Corp. Chairman Rick Wagoner, fresh from GM's 100th anniversary celebration back home, is scheduled to address the Economic Club of Washington tonight -- four days after his last appearance in the capital. That's not all. Ford CEO Alan Mulally plans to be in Washington on Wednesday, and a joint appearance by the Big Three CEOs is expected at a meeting the same day with top congressional leaders. Chrysler LLC Chairman Bob Nardelli, in town for an event at the Pentagon this week, also is to meet with members of Congress. The biggest hurdle remains winning overt White House support for the loan package and finding a way to pay for the program -- now estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cost the Treasury as much as $7.5 billion, up from $3.75 billion, as a hedge against default. Wall Street's bleak Monday notwithstanding, this should be a simple call for a Washington pushing Detroit inexorably toward a more fuel-efficient future. These companies, so often derided as building only irresponsible gas-guzzlers, are responding because a) they should and b) they don't have any choice. If making Detroit move faster was smart enough politics to write into last year's energy bill, it's smart politics to fund it, too, because Wall Street is too busy soiling its own nest to help. Staff Writer David Shepardson contributed. Daniel Howes' column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at (313) 222-2106, [email protected] or detnews.com/howes.